On a May evening in 1970, a planter in Munnar crouched in a ‘machan’ over the half-eaten carcass of a cow, expecting a panther to return to its ‘kill’.

When he heard the crunching of bones, he noiselessly switched on his headlight — to find a tiger below. Though taken aback, the temptation proved irresistible and he shot it dead, the flimsy justification being that it was a cattle-lifter. It was the first dead tiger I had ever seen — and hopefully the last. And it wasn’t a pretty sight.

In retrospect, had the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 been promulgated two years earlier, perhaps the hapless feline would have survived and helped to increase Munnar’s one-digit tiger population. Mercifully, it was the last big cat to be shot there.

The carnage, of course, had started during the Raj. To the British, the tiger was the most coveted shikar trophy and no big-game hunter was worth his salt unless he bagged a tiger. Apparently, a man’s hunting prowess then was gauged by the number of tigers he had slain. Mounted tiger heads and skins were prized possessions to be flaunted in drawing rooms.

Even in the early 1970s there was increasing awareness of the sharply declining tiger population. I recall several anti-shikar articles and cartoons had appeared in the British press. One showed a woman carrying two tiger skin coats and telling a companion, “Yes, it’s a pity they’ve become so scarce — that’s why I bought two!” Another showed a woman trying on a tiger skin overcoat in a department store with her husband tartly commenting, “It certainly looks better on its original owner!” Yet another cartoon portrayed ‘beaters’ flushing out a tiger for hunters with the fleeing feline exclaiming,”Dammit! Why do they keep beating around the bush?”

... contd.