One early morning in Kaziranga National Park, I heard a frantic knock on my door and an urgent call from the Range Officer. He mentioned two tigers having been sighted near a human settlement fringing the National Park along the highway. Our mission is to ensure that neither tigers nor humans come to harm and that the tigers can go safely back to the wild. In the flood season, rescue operations in Kaziranga have the added challenge of working in a submerged landscape. This area is known to flood every year during the monsoon and this year has been particularly challenging. Having joined the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) in 2015 as a veterinary doctor I have been attending to wildlife emergencies every year since then, especially during the flood season. Every year, Tarun Gogoi, the Animal Keeper from the Centre of Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation (CWRC), and me camp at guest house, Bagori Range, Kaziranga National Park to address distressed wildlife rescue calls. This year, on July 14 one of our first rescues was a hog deer fawn from Tezpur amongst other injured wild animals.

On receiving a call on tiger case I hurried out of our accommodation unit, I saw Pankaj Bora, the forest Range Officer of the Bagori Range waiting for me in his Gypsy. I hopped in and he started driving towards the site where the tigers were last seen. We were immediately reminded of a tiger rescue at Harmoti last year. A full-grown Royal Bengal Tiger was sitting on a bed inside a scrap dealer’s shop seeking refuge from the Kaziranga flood. Wild animals that leave the flood-ridden park and seek shelter in people’s homes require different rescue strategies than animals who go to settlements in search of food or those who fight for territories. At around 8:00 am, we reached a house that belonged to Prabin Bora. He approached us with a warm smile and informed us of his sightings of two tigers who tried to cross the National Highway 37 to move towards the foothills of Karbi Anglong. As it turned out, one of the tigers ended up hiding in the bushes behind his house. I suspected that the tigers may be related as mother and child or as sub-adults weaned off the mother. To our surprise, neither he nor his family members showed any signs of palpable fear as they went along on their normal day’s work. Nevertheless, we deployed frontline staff at the site to protect the family and avoid people gathering to see the tiger.

During flood rescue duty, breaking for lunch is a luxury we can’t afford, hence, eating a heavy breakfast is always a good idea before we start our day. At our breakfast meeting, we devised a plan of action. The area surrounding his house was flooded with water and we decided to try and spot the tiger from a safe distance. At 10:30 am, we saw the tiger swimming in the floodwater towards the foothills of Karbi. We deployed a team to follow the tiger with a hand boat at a safe distance to ensure that it reaches the Karbi foothills safely. And to our relief, it did manage to swim to safety (its natural habitat).

Just as we thought the operation was over, we saw a man speeding on his old Splendor bike screaming “Bagh..Bagh Ulaise!” as he passed us. We found out that the man on the bike has seen another tiger trying to cross the highway as he was passing by. We knew instantly that this was the second tiger that Prabin Bora had reported to us. Unable to cross the highway, the tiger was hiding in the forest patches near the road. A crowd had gathered and the information of this tiger had already reached the higher park authorities. Meanwhile, the Park Director- P Sivakumar, the DFO, Kaziranga National Park – Ramesh Gogoi, Dr. Rathin Barman (In Charge of  WTI-IFAW-AFD run Center for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation) had reached the spot. They were preparing to block a 500-meter stretch of the national highway where the tiger was hiding so that it could have a safe passage to cross the road to the Karbi hills. Residents in the surrounding area were cautioned to stay indoors. Our team used blank firecrackers and speedboats to try and flush the tiger to pass to the other side, however, this did not seem to work.

As the evening progressed and darkness set, we hoped that the tiger may have crossed the highway safely. Nonetheless, we had staff present at the spot for any updates. Our tired and hungry CWRC team returned to the guesthouse at Bagori for dinner. As I went in for a much-needed bath, I heard my phone ring. As I hurried outside, we were informed that the tiger was seen in the kitchen of Prabin Bora’s house. Now, our rescue mission got tricky as it was nightfall and Prabin’s family must have been cooking dinner. We decided to evacuate the family from the house and shift them to the guesthouse in Bagori where I was staying. This was crucial for the next steps of our rescue operation. We left the kitchen door open and hoped the tiger would leave by morning. As we arrived at the house the next morning, we saw the tiger lying on the kitchen floor through a bamboo mess. The local MLA cum cabinet minister, Keshab Mahanta also took stock of the situation.

We had called for backup support from WTI-IFAW-AFD-CWRC  who also had reached the site and now a multidisciplinary team comprising of animal keepers, wildlife veterinarians, biologists had assembled at the house of Prabin Bora.

We had two plans; Plan A was to make noise to make the tiger leave the kitchen. Our efforts, however, were unsuccessful. So, we had to resort to the riskier Plan B which was to secure the exit door of the kitchen and tranquilize the tiger. Securing the exit door safely was difficult and the house was submerged in floodwater. On the advice of P Sivakumar, Dr Rathin Barman and the veterinarians, we made two teams; one, the A-Team led by Dr. Samshul Ali for tranquilizing the tiger and the other, the B-Team led by me, for ensuring the safety of the tiger if it came out to the water.

Our B team constituted a three-hand boat with 8 people who were excellent swimmers. We had medicine kits, trap nets, and other emergency equipment ready. We waited patiently, keeping our eyes and ears open for any signs of the tiger or the tranquilizing team. Half an hour later, we heard someone run towards us screaming in joy and we knew the plan was successful. Luckily, the tiger did not move out of the house during the operation. As I entered the kitchen, I saw that the tiger was sedated and in a cage. It was a female around two years old, we could estimate that by looking at her dentition. As a veterinary doctor, I could only heave a sigh of relief once the animal has completely recovered from the anesthesia without any complications.

The tiger was shifted to WTI-IFAW-AFD CWRC for 24 hours of observation and was finally released on the morning of 17^th July 2020. I was more than delighted that the operation went smoothly without any causalities. This was possible only with the collaboration of civil authority, Kaziranga Park Authority, CWRC and public support, who went out of their way to ensure that the two tigers could escape the flood and go back safely to the wild. Prabin Bora and his family showed an immense amount of cooperation by agreeing to evacuate the house to make room for their overnight guest leaving a memory of a lifetime for me, marveling at his family’s fortitude and their  understanding of this spatial co-existence with wildlife.

Kaziranga floods every year and each year the people here work hard to ensure we can coexist with the wildlife with whom we humans co-exist at Kaziranga.

– Dr Daoharu Baro, the author of this article is a veterinarian associated with WTI since 2015.

He can be contacted at daoharu@wti.org.in