It’s a feat unmatched in the annals of Indian wildlife history. Records show that in 1892 the Scottish pioneers who opened

up Munnar’s tea estates successfully trapped and tamed a gaur, or Indian bison — the first ever to be so tamed.

Gaur then were so numerous and destructive to the tea saplings that the pioneers decided to trap one in the hope of

scaring away the rest. Soon enough a 10-ft-deep pit camouflaged with bamboo shoots had a full-grown bull raging and rampaging inside it, so much so that the pit threatened to cave in. Logs were hastily placed over it to prevent escape.

Bundles of grass were gingerly lowered into the pit, only to be viciously trampled time and again. A bucket of water was promptly flattened. But after two days hunger got the better of the gaur and it began to feed voraciously, gulping water poured down from a watering-can.

A month later the gaur was manoeuvred into a large stockade built around the pit. Immediately it charged the barricade, cannoning into it and stunning itself senseless, before realising that it couldn’t escape. Thereafter it appeared resigned to captivity. Over the next two months it slowly became more docile. It liked to be fed salt and have its head scratched — though its keeper had to steer clear of its deadly horns which measured 35 inches at their widest. It was indeed quite a huge beast with a large, hairy dewlap and white-stockinged legs.

Having sufficiently tamed the captive, the planters decided to ring its nostrils as part of its domestication and then gift it to the Trivandrum zoo as proof of their historic achievement.

... contd.