Original subtitles

Downloaded from YTS.MX

Official YIFY movies site: YTS.MX

I thought I was making a documentary

on a tiger in the wild.

But on May 8th, 2015,

the tiger I was following killed a man.

And my documentary became about something bigger.

He's India's best known, most famous,

or should I say infamous, tiger.

His name is Ustad, T-24.

The man that was killed was Rampal Saini,

a forest guard.

He is survived by his wife, Dholi Bai,

and his son, Mohan, who was 17 years old

on the date of the attack.

The definition of a man eater

is a tiger that kills and eats people.

T-24 killed and ate two people.

The forest guards were scared of doing any patrolling anymore,

and specially in T-- T-24, Ustad's territory

they absolutely refused to do any foot patrolling.

This animal must be picked up and taken out,

and he will always be a problem

because he now has a memory implant

that this is food.

He was the pride of Ranthambore,

but now is the biggest villain of the national park.

We're talking about Ustad, or T-24,

who was abruptly relocated a few days ago

to a biological park in Udaipur,

allegedly because he had turned into a man killer.

Accused of killing four humans in the last five years,

Ustad is now forced to live

in a small enclosure, miles away from home.

When this thing started,

I had no idea what I was doing.

So we're in Ranthambore, Rajasthan.

It's May, um...

What is it? May 23rd, 2012?

It's, um, it's hot.

It's about 45 degree Celsius,

which I-- I think is 110 Fahrenheit, I'm sure.

I was told to follow a tigress with cubs

because those make for the best tiger documentaries.

But then I saw this young male, T-24.

Locally, he was known as Ustad,

which means... the Master.

How was I not gonna follow him?

He turned out to be the dominant male of Ranthambore,

a 109-square-mile national park in northwest India.

For the most part, Ranthambore is Tiger paradise,

with its large water bodies, ample prey,

and plenty of camouflage in dry deciduous forest.

A former hunting ground for the Maharajas of Jaipur,

today, wild tigers are protected here.

In fact, you can see them walking amongst the very relics

from which they were once hunted.

Twenty percent of the habitat is open for tourism.

Here, tigers are maniacally pursued and celebrated.

Tiger tourism is big business in Ranthambore,

earning millions for hotel owners

and the Forest Department,

income which is put back into conservation.

T-24's territory was nearly 20 square miles.

It stretched all the way towards the main road

from where pilgrims and tourists enter the park

and towards a village called the Old City.

I'd heard that he'd killed people.

But at the time, I chose to ignore the attacks.

I just wanted to follow him in the wild.

He was kind of a super tiger,

handsome, powerful...

and he had a cool beard.

He weighed nearly 600 pounds,

huge, even for a Bengal tiger.

He also had a family.

This is Noor,

T-24's one and only mating partner.

And you can see why. She's pretty hot.

This is Sultan, Noor's son through T-24.

He's pretty big, too, for a one-year-old.

December 2013 was my first winter with T-24.

He seemed relaxed. Only the flies bothered him.

But later he became annoyed

by the presence of another tiger

who turned out to be Sultan, now almost fully grown.

While Sultan is still allowed in his father's territory,

coming close could be interpreted as a challenge.

I think it was about the time

Sultan urinated himself

that he realized he was in over his head

and his only choice was to submit to his father.

T-24 was entirely capable of killing his son,

but chose to spare him.

Pilgrims are allowed to walk through T-24's territory

on certain days to visit the Ganesh Temple.

Forest guards are on full alert on these days.

This is not one of those days.

Basically, we've got, we've got kids

walk-- walking literally into the reserve

because it, there's a back road

that connects to the-- the temple.

There's a big bunch of commotion right now. Um...

You know, this is, this is T-24's territory,

and he's gonna end up killing someone

and, you know, the tiger will be blamed.

In June 2014,

Noor was spotted with her second litter.

T-24 was a father again.

Locals named the two male cubs Gora and Kalua.

The cubs are now a year old.

They've grown rapidly now that they're off milk

and eating meat, which both parents provided plenty of.

Noor would acquire prey traditionally,

patiently stalking,

ready to explode into the immense effort required

in taking down family-sized prey.

While T-24 would just show up

like an undefeated brawler,

usurping kills from other predators.

T-24 is right behind me.

Behind him is a somber kill,

which is a-- a large deer,

and, um, it wasn't his kill.

He stole it from a-- a leopard.

The leopard killed it ahead.

He's dragged the kill behind to this tree,

which is more secure for him.

Although the leopard retreated and stayed retreated,

T-24 kept watch over the kill all day

and into the night without eating it.

It was only in the morning that I realized

he was saving meat for his family.

In spite of his generosity, when T-24 wanted to eat,

he wanted his space.

If he seems like an abusive father right now, think again.

However vicious he appears, it was not a real threat

because he tolerated all kinds of mischief,

like being swiped in the face...

being forced to play...

and being woken from an afternoon snooze.

The Shiva Temple is located within T-24's territory.

Today is Lord Shiva's birthday.

Hundreds of pilgrims will walk through T-24's territory

to visit the temple.

Just one mile away,

Noor has killed a bull on the path to the Shiva Temple

and is sharing it with her son Kalua.

This bull must have crossed over from the grazing area.

The Forest Department anticipates

that T-24 will join in the feasting soon.

This is problematic given T-24's history

and the incoming pilgrims.

To protect the pilgrims,

the Forest Department decides to intervene.

When Noor and the cub step away,

the forest guards seize their opportunity.

The kill is moved deeper into the core.

As invasive as this is,

the Forest Department made a call

in the interest of preventing

potentially fatal man-animal conflict.

Pilgrims were able to visit the Shiva Temple

without incident throughout the day.

[chanting in

Later in the afternoon, Noor comes searching

for her bull kill with her hungry cubs.

Losing a large kill

is a serious problem for a tiger family.

When she locates the bull, she's suspicious.

It's obvious, her kill has been tampered with.

There will be no eating until she assesses the situation

and hides her kill from further interference.

The next morning, T-24 locates the bull kill.

It was February 18th, 2015,

the last day I would see T-24 in the wild.

Three months later, he was removed

for the killing of Rampal Saini,

which, according to the Forest Department,

was T-24's fourth human kill.

My documentary had become bigger

than just me and T-24.

Now the whole country was involved.

This protest is to get T-24, the tiger from Ranthambore,

popularly called Ustad, to get him released from the zoo.

He has been taken out of his natural habitat

and put in a zoo, so we're talking about a tiger

who is used to 30, 40 square kilometers of area

now living in half-hectare enclosure.

So you can imagine the life that he's living today.

What would you do if you were in your home

and somebody enters your home and catches you by surprise?

If somebody comes to my house and I kill him,

it's self-defense.

Our voice is falling on deaf ears.

I'm sorry the forest officials are thick-skinned,

corrupt, and inept.

The tiger is our national animal.

We should be protecting it,

not threatening it, not endangering it.

Please stop making man eaters of our tigers.

In the early 1900s, over 40,000 tigers

thrived in India's diverse and pervasive forests.

By the late 1960s, habitat destruction

and the so-called royal sport of hunting

reduced tigers to less than 2000

hiding in fragmented remnants

of a once sweeping tiger habitat.

A record kill.

Ten feet, two inches of stilled fury

and now a great trophy.

Nowhere else in the world

could this hunt have taken place

and at so small a cost.

Yes, nowhere but India can the big-game hunter

get so much for his money.

In 1972, the government of India outlawed hunting.

A year later, India's prime minister,

Indira Gandhi, launched Project Tiger,

legally protecting the little remaining tiger habitat

through the creation of tiger reserves.

Forest guards were hired to patrol these tiger reserves,

and whole villages were moved outside the reserve perimeter.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority,

or NTCA, is a central government body

that supports Project Tiger with legal backing.

Ranthambore is one of fifty tiger reserves.

All these tiger reserves combined

represent less than 2% of the landmass of India.

According to the NTCA, the tiger reserves

are to be made up of a core and a buffer.

The core is supposed to be exclusively for tigers,

where their well-being is the priority.

It gives tigers a place in the world,

a sacred place that they can call their own.

The buffer is supposed to separate the core

from the village.

Here, villagers are allowed to bring in cattle for grazing

and pick firewood.

With Ranthambore-- Ranthambore Tiger Reserve,

when it was selected in 1974,

it was the smallest of all the tiger reserves selected,

and it has no buffer.

It's like a little island

in the middle of a very busy human population.

No buffer means human activity

borders the tigers' home.

If you look at this grazing area, for example,

it's only separated by the main road.

And this is the road where all the tourists go in,

where filmmakers like myself go in to film tigers

inside the national park.

Here's some more cattle

walking to another grazing area.

And then, there's this wall.

And behind this wall is core area.

And this is the reality of Ranthambore.

There is no buffer.

And when cattle stray in from the gate,

they do get killed by tigers,

which is upsetting to the villagers

who generate their livelihood from cattle.

The core itself is compromised in certain areas.

As we have seen, Ranthambore allows villagers

to enter the core for religious purposes.

T-24's particular territory

had the highest visitation of pilgrims.

Rampal Saini was killed in the core area.

But he had a right to be there because he was a forest guard.

You don't wanna be off-roading in the forest

because you will either damage the forest,

or your jeep, or both.

So jeeps stay on the road

while forest guards have to do their job on foot

in order to find poachers and to properly ID tigers

as T-24, T-39, T-72, etcetera.

We don't want a man eater out there on the loose, right?

So it was very important to ID the tiger,

which has not been done.

Nobody saw him clearly when the incident happened,

and in the melee, all they could say was it was a tiger.

Whether it was Sultan, whether it was Ustad,

or Star Male, who used to frequent

that area occasionally, there was no positive ID made.

The area where Rampal Saini was killed

was definitely in T-24's territory.

Star Male never came there.

Star Male used to come to another place,

but a kilometer away from where Rampal was killed.

There probably 5% chance whether it could be Star Male,

95% chance that it had to be T-24.

T-24's oldest son Sultan, was the prime suspect

in the immediate confusion after the attack

and was labeled as the killer tiger

in the first news reports.

I also heard that it wasn't T-24.

Sultan was spotted by a few tourist vehicles

who have seen and identified Sultan there before.

And since Ustad and Sultan were seen together,

they were, they were in the same territory that time,

I have... The week before that when I was in Ranthambore,

I've shot both of them together.

Since Sultan and Ustad were both seen together,

and if Sultan actually did the killing and not Ustad,

and Ustad, since he was nearby,

he came, he's an animal, he sniffed blood.

And he just happened to be

at the wrong place at the wrong time.

If we get attacked, just keep rolling, okay?

This is the exact spot where Rampal was killed.

And that's the-- that's the road to the fort.

That's the road? Okay.

Whenever a tiger comes along this main road

the guards are deployed right away

because a lot of people walk on this road.

We got one forest canter to park

about 100, 200 meters down the road here.

Another forest jeep to park about

200 meters down the road here.

- The other side, okay. Okay. - Yeah, the other side.

They were parked in such a way that they could see each other.

And then, the fourth forest jeep parked there.

The idea was that we park these four jeeps in such a way

that if a tiger is still within this area

and he moves, we'll surely see him.

We reached here, uh, very close to, uh,

very close to the spot, the moment we reached here

we saw the tiger come out of behind this bush.

At that time, there was some blood lying here

and a small part of Rampal's skull.

He came, started sniffing at the blood, licked it.

He looked up and we identified him as T-24 right away.

There was a spot of blood just here.

We actually, we drove the car right up till here,

and we saw the T-24 come out, when we first identified him.

- Yeah. - He started snarling at us.

- So we drove back. - Okay.

And then he came up here,

licked this blood, started looking around here,

all around, uh, for good about 20 minutes

till it became pretty dark.

He's smelling for the...

This was a clear stalk and hit.

Yeah, but tell me how it's a clear stalk and hit.

Because a stalk and hit is always from the back.

- Okay. - An attack is from the front.

- Okay. - Attack is from the front.

You mean a chance-encounter attack.

Yeah, a chance-encounter attack.

Defense attack will always be from the front.

And an attack is noisy.

- Yeah. - The tiger roars, screams.

- Yeah. Yeah. - You know, it gets very loud.

Because a chance-encounter attack

is basically the tiger's way of telling you to get lost.

- Yeah. - Or pushing you away from them.

- He's warning you. - He's warning you.

- Yeah. - This was silent.

Nobody heard it.

So here's what we know

about the May 8th, 2015, attack.

At 6:00 p.m., forest guard Rampal Saini

goes into the forest alone

to verify a tiger that was reported in the area.

He's 20 feet off the main road into core tiger territory.

A tiger attacks Rampal.

This attack is either a chance encounter

where the animal acted in self-defense

or a stalk and hit

with the intention to kill and eat Rampal.

Rampal falls to the ground,

and the tiger proceeds to grab him by the neck.

Shankar Lal drives up and slams his brakes

upon seeing the tiger.

The skidding of his car causes the tiger to flee.

Forest guard Mundher rushes in

and drags bleeding Rampal towards the road.

Forester Hukam Chand Meena flags down a jeep.

They load Rampal into the jeep, which speeds to the hospital

where Rampal is pronounced dead.

The Forest Department, along with Aditya Singh,

return to the scene of the attack

at approximately 7 p.m. to find a large male tiger

smelling and licking

the still-wet blood of Rampal Saini.

They positively identify this tiger as Tiger Number 24

and take photographic evidence to confirm their findings.

They use this evidence to conclude

that T-24 was the killer tiger.

See, a tiger sniffing blood on the road

does not implicate him as the murderer.

You remember this bull kill

from the opening of the film

and how this was actually Noor's kill, not T-24's?

Here's T-24 looking for that same bull kill

the next morning.

This is the same behavior that the Forest Department

used to implicate T-24

as the tiger that killed Rampal Saini.

Look at T-24 devouring this kill.

See how he drags it like it is his kill,

how he wants to pull it deeper into the bush,

further punctuating that this must be his kill.

But we know that it was not his kill.

To definitively ID T-24 as Rampal's killer

would require identification at the moment of the attack.

Virtually impossible,

given that it was a hit and run.

Or resort to technology.

We have technology which can help.

Why wasn't it established through forensic means?

Forensics are part of the NTCA guidelines

for identifying man-eating tigers.

I support forensics, but we are living

in a country called India.

We are living in a forest department

where you haven't given even a uniform

to the forest guard properly.

Where every little thing, including their ration,

what they do in the day or the night,

has a big problem attached to it.

Where people like myself have worked 40 years

on government committees to solve these problems

and have been unsuccessful because we live in a world

of babus and bureaucrats

who don't know how to govern, okay?

They take a hundred years to solve little problems.

They don't solve them in the same day.

Do you think that we haven't fought for forensics

in every region, so you have a hundred forensic labs

that you can deal with, or you have

little areas within the park itself?

But these are, this is like, you know, saying,

"Oh, this is gonna be a miracle if it happens."

We can't get the first A-B-C-D of the alphabet to happen.

So should the public think that forensics can happen?

In a country like India have you driven in traffic in Delhi?

- Yeah, it's crazy, yeah. - You know what a rule is?

What is a traffic light?

Where is the pedestrian crossing?

I mean, we give more and more driving licenses.

Do you know that nobody takes a test for a driving license?

Do you know that everybody out there on the road is a killer?

Why don't the public at large

go and stop the traffic regulations?

Why don't they say that there should be safe traffic?

Do we do anything in this country correctly?

And you want forensics in a tiger forest?

Out there in boondocks? Who's gonna bring it to you?

God?

So what you're saying is ideally, yes--

Of course ideally yes. Of course we...

I-- I've put it down in recommendations 20 years ago,

but they don't come through.

This tiger, T-24, he did not kill Rampal Saini.

It's not the tiger which killed Rampal Saini.

It's the defunct system.

The law says that if you have to translocate any animal,

specially if it is a Schedule 1 animal

under the Wildlife Protection Act,

Please seek the permission of the Central Government,

which in this case would be

the National Tiger Conservation Authority.

There was no communication between

the chief wildlife warden and the NTCA,

and I've confirmed that personally.

If you were the chief wildlife warden,

your field director, Sahu, whoever it is,

says, "T-24 has killed this guard.

We have determined this," you know,

"We want to move him," or whatever, you...

What is your move from there? Do you call the NTCA?

- Do you write them a note? - Yes.

You cannot shift an animal,

as per the NTCA guidelines,

without the abject approval of the NTCA.

- You have to have it on paper. Yeah.

In this particular case,

I'm told that the approval was taken later on

after the tiger was moved to, uh, the zoo.

NTCA has the mandate to provide guidelines,

norms for tiger conservation.

So if you've created a certain guideline for translocation,

for example, or to declare a big cat as a man-eater,

then you're supposed to ensure

that the state governments follow those guidelines,

follow those norms, follow those protocols.

Unfortunately, in this particular case,

none of that happened.

On May 28th, 2015, Chandrabhal Singh

was set to present his case to return T-24 to the wild.

The High Court dismissed Chandrabhal's case.

They stated that the removal of T-24

was "A decision taken by Forest Officials

who are experts in wild life and tiger management."

And was based on T-24's successive killings,

Rampal Saini being the fourth victim.

The High Court's dismissal implied that T-24

was a man-eating tiger.

All the four incidents happened in the core area of the forest,

and not a single incident

it happened in the human settlement.

So how can we call this tiger a man eater?

Him being taken out of his territory

by wrongful and inconclusive evidence is not correct.

Without him, his two cubs

are vulnerable to another male tiger attack.

If T-24 is not there,

that puts Noor, T-39, at a bigger risk.

I'm not worried about, uh, you know, the cubs.

The first in the line of fire is the T-39.

To defend her cub, she's gonna be at the greater risk.

Okay, it's June 10th, 6:00 p.m.

Um, and it's raining, obviously.

Um, it's my first time in Ranthambore

uh, without T-24 in the reserve,

and I'm a little concerned that it's raining.

T-24's scent markings,

um, from his scent glands and his urine sprays,

all those kinds of markings are now going to lose any value

because of the rain.

They're gonna be literally washed away.

And this is problematic for T-39,

also known as Noor, who is his mating partner,

um, and the two, the cubs who are just over a year old,

because other males are much more likely

to come into his territory now,

given that, um, his scent has gone away.

The rain cleared, and I located Gora,

now nearly his mother's size, but clearly in distress

because he could not find her.

Gora's brother, Kalua,

was dealing with the stress of tourists

blocking his path and flashing their cameras

as he tried to cross the road

to return to his parents' territory,

presumably also looking for his mother, Noor,

and his father, T-24.

When I finally found Noor,

she seemed to be intensively disturbed.

She appeared to be looking for and calling for T-24,

but did not get a call back.

After weeks of looking,

she encounters a male inside T-24's territory.

But it is not her king.

It is a new male, T-57.

And once he locked in on her,

he stayed on her relentlessly.

Eventually, Noor submits to the new male.

The cubs flee up north, never to be seen again.

T-57 has now taken over T-24's territory

and his mating partner.

Her name...

- Her name is Dholi Bai. Dholi Bai.

Dholi means...

Dholi means white.

On June 16th, 2015,

the National Tiger Conservation Authority

issues an appraisal report on the removal of T-24

from Ranthambore Tiger Reserve.

"There were considerable time periods

between the attacks involving T-24

on human beings in its territory.

However, for the rest of the period over the year,

the said tiger was living

on a natural-prey base in the territory.

It may also be observed that in all the incidences,

the human being went very close to the tiger

in-- in-- in its territory,

paving way for chance encounters

within the fight-or-flight distance of the animal."

So this report categorically and clearly says

that this tiger was not a man eater.

In Ranthambore, T-24 was a man eater.

Just the fact that he had eaten one body nearly completely,

he is a man eater.

And anyone from NTCA or NTCA's parent organization,

or the ministry, or anyone in the Forest Department,

or anyone from anywhere who says different,

has no knowledge about tigers.

I'm not prepared to discuss it further in terms of the fact

that I don't waste my time on people who don't have knowledge,

whether they are in government or out of government.

It would be ridiculous for anyone to come to Ranthambore

from any part and say that T-24 was not a man eater,

because that person has not done his homework

and shouldn't be in the job that they are in.

These are advisories, they wake up in the morning

and write advisories.

No state government will allow the federal government

to rule them on this.

Looking after tigers is a state subject.

They transfer the forest officers,

they manage the parks, they take on all the problems.

They're not going to listen to little paper tigers

that are sent by the NTCA.

See, I-- I don't know enough science about tigers,

but I think if science still allows the ti-- tiger

to be rehabilitated in an alternative habitat

because the law says alternative suitable habitat,

which is definitely not a zoo.

If-- if science can still permit the tiger

to roam around freely in a suitable habitat,

whether it is back to Ranthambore or portions of it,

or adjoining it, I think it should go... still.

And I think the NTCA is well within their right

to convince them that that's a better option

for the life of the tiger, rather than keeping them in zoo.

And I have full faith in the judiciary that sooner or later,

the voice of this animal will be heard.

Armed with the new information

from the NTCA report,

Chandrabhal Singh refiled his case

to return T-24 to the wild.

To make your own judgment on T-24,

you have to go back to his previous attacks

and to the 2009 treatment of his paw injury.

In April 2009, T-24 was seen limping

due to a festering puncture wound from a thorn.

He was tranquilized for treatment in the wild.

The injured paw was cleaned

and antibiotics were administered.

Ice blocks were used to manage the inflammation.

While unconscious, a radio collar was attached

so that T-24 could be monitored.

I'm convinced that T-24's dangerous attitude

towards human beings started with that first incident

of a badly managed radio-collaring operation.

I've watched radio collaring in my life.

I've seen tigers being radio collared,

but in half an hour they're up and gone.

This was ridiculous.

- And therefore... - It was two days.

The two days somebody should have been

held accountable and answerable.

- Well, he had the paw thing. - Why?

They argue that he would have died.

Would've been... Would it have been better for the--

Let him-- let him die. It's not your business.

You're not playing God to the tiger.

We are not God to the tiger. We are just human beings.

We are observers of a natural world

which we know so much about.

I've spent 40 years watching tigers,

I've probably seen more tigers and spent more time with tigers

than anyone today in the world, but I'm still learning.

Whereas all these new young scientists and forest officers

who are posted think that they know the answer.

You never know the answer.

You have to have the humility to understand an animal

and the humility not to interfere in it and let it be.

- Yeah. Right. - If it has to die, it will die.

And another will come in its place.

That's what the natural world is about.

- Okay. - Let's not interfere with it.

So they interfered with the natural world.

Dr. Rajeev Garg believes

that his 48-hour treatment of T-24's paw injury

had nothing to do with T-24's attacks on humans.

Instead, Garg insists that T-24

had lost his fear of humans

due to their invasion into his territory.

Would you call him a man eater or a--

Okay.

Okay.

Ghamandi? Yes.

Yes.

Yeah. The animal attacked Ghamandi.

Okay.

Right.

Okay.

Right.

Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So you saw T-24 on Ghamandi's body?

Yeah.

-Grandmother. -Yes.

Grandmother.

- Your mother? Okay. - Ah, yeah, mother.

Hello. Hello. Hello, how are you?

Okay, okay, okay.

Ghamandi's brother. Hi, nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

How are you? Mm.

This is the main road at 6:00 a.m.

Behind the wall you see on the left

is the edge of T-24's territory.

Just inside and outside the wall,

villagers wash and relieve themselves.

To defecate, they go in deeper into the core

with bottles of water to clean themselves after.

This is illegal and dangerous,

but most days they will not see a tiger,

let alone have a deadly encounter.

According to Ghamandi's father,

this is exactly what his son was doing

the morning he was killed by T-24.

Legally, the Forest Department was not obligated

to provide any compensation to Ghamandi's family

because he invaded core tiger territory.

The $2000 compensation was likely a goodwill gesture

because following the attack, Ghamandi's family and friends

came close to mob violence.

Surprise...

Okay.

So what probably happened is he came down here,

the tiger was here, and then the argument is,

why did the tiger attack, right?

So it could be, yes, this is a man-eating tiger.

This was a great opportunity.

Or, two, that the tiger was surprised

and this was like a chance encounter

and that's why he was killed.

Ashfaq was supposedly down here

because the wood that's down here is better wood for cutting,

and because there's, like, you know, Ficus leaves.

That's-- that's the official report.

Okay, now if you look over there,

there's actually-- there's actually some locals.

Okay, the-- the guard is getting really frustrated with me,

but I just want to, like, see what these guys did.

So-- so this is-- this is, um, the leaves

that-- that Ashfaq was, was going to get for these goats.

I just came from the village down over here.

Uh, this is where Ashfaq used to live

and now right behind me, there's-- there's

grazing cattle coming down along with the cattle herders.

They're right up over there, the guy's wearing a red shirt

and the yellow shirt, they're-- they're coming down.

And you can see that this invasion

into the core is still happening.

This is the sort of the, the edge of the core,

because from here, it's this village right after that.

And this is just the reality right now of Ranthambore.

There isn't this sort of ideal situation

where there's this core, then there's this buffer,

and then, after that, there's the village.

In many areas, there's core, and then there's village.

Beyond all the need for livelihood, beyond all,

you know, "I gotta collect wood for, you know, my family

and leaves for my goats and all that," it's-- it's kind of fun.

I mean, it's actually kind of fun to-- to... It's freedom.

You know, I mean, it's-- it's just was fun for me

to go up this hill and sit over here.

It's just kind of a cool place to hang out.

That's probably how this happened, you know?

Um, you know, if I'm Ashfaq, I'm-- I'm do...

Every day, I'm going here for a walk, I'm enjoying myself,

I'm-- I'm picking up leaves for my goats,

I'm-- I'm cutting wood, and this is what I do.

I see a tiger or a leopard every once in a while

really far away, and then, one day,

I run right into one, and I get killed.

If a pilgrim was killed, the potential

for a riot would have been there.

Even, like, poisoning in retaliation or something like--

Villagers have been known to poison tigers,

burn the forest and the Forest Department quarters

when they sense that the Forest Department

has not protected them from tiger attacks.

Although T-24's surgery was successful,

his intestinal blockage became a chronic issue.

I believe that it's 100% due to the claustrophobic

and the constricted area

to which the tiger has been confined.

That is causing all this. Tiger is a-- is an animal...

Causing the stomach problem?

Causing the stomach problem.

Over the next two years, Chandrabhal Singh

continues to fight for T-24 through the legal system.

On May 28th, 2017,

after his review petition gets dismissed,

he calls it quits.

Meanwhile, back in Ranthambore,

T-57 continues to rule over T-24's territory

and over his mating partner, Noor.

Through T-57, Noor produces three cubs.

Life has moved on in Ranthambore without T-24.

Right. One hectare in this case.

Yeah.

Right.

T-24 as one of the tigers that I love,

but I love all tigers.

Once he started killing human beings,

then he became a threat to his own species.

Now, to protect the species, with a heavy heart,

we had to agree that we had to send him away.

It doesn't mean that I stopped loving him.

And T-24 is one of the most beautiful specimens

of a male tiger.

I mean, I may partly be in love with T-24.

I've loved my moments with him,

but I also know that you have to manage a park,

that you have to find a way to deal with local people

and their problems, forest guards who don't want

to patrol because of this animal.

No. No.

Right.

So maybe there is no good guy

or bad guy in this T-24 tragedy.

Maybe that's life.

Maybe if you look deep enough, there's dirt on everyone.

Each side cares about T-24,

but each side wants to tear the other down.

Was T-24 a man eater?

That will always be up for debate.

But there is no debate that all the attacks

occurred within his territory inside the core area,

which is designated sacred space for tigers by law.

T-24 was ultimately removed

because the core area of tiger reserves are compromised,

and these small remaining wild areas

where tigers survive are managed by departments

that must strike a balance between the tiger's needs,

the needs of the forest staff,

their families, and the villagers.

In order to prevent conflict between tigers and humans,

we must provide safe solutions for villagers

entering the little remaining tiger habitat

while empowering forest staff

with safer patrolling protocols.

Without these changes,

attacks on humans will increase.

And with that, an increasing number of tigers

will be removed from the wild and put in zoos.

And this is a tragedy for future generations

because there's nothing quite as beautiful, inspirational,

and important as a tiger in the wild.

People travel from all over the world to India

to see the last wild tigers.

They admire them and photograph them

as they would works of art.

To take tigers away from the wild

will be to take a piece of inspiration

away from the world.

To thrive, wild tigers require large forest expanses.

This means that saving tigers also saves the forests,

which in turn fights climate change,

curbs soil erosion, purifies water,

and maintains species diversity.

If we can give tigers a sacred place in the world,

we can make the world a better place for all species,

including mankind.