The author describes travelling to Nepal in 1975 to seek
tigers. Eric Dinerstein was a recently qualified American
field biologist. DISCOVERING BIG CAT COUNTRY was the
pinnacle of his training to date. The tigress turned out
to
be a lot closer than he'd expected. Issues facing the
graduate included avalanches, road blockages, travel by
elephant back, and territorial established biologists who
had staked out a particular species, or area, and didn't
want incomers spoiling their research.
The trials of the next two years are told with humour,
verve and self-ridicule as Eric found his stilt-legged
sleeping hut alive with rats and bats, a member of the
low-
ranked goldsmithing Sunwar caste became his best friend
and
jungle guide, and a hill tribe man became his cook. Wisely
Eric had spent months learning the language. This land,
headwaters of the Ganges river, Eric notes is where
humidity was invented, with biting insects and local beer
instead of tainted drinking water. Rhinos, antelopes, wild
dogs, hyenas, gharial crocodiles and cobras were all to be
found in the Bardia reserve which Eric now surveyed.
Tigers are not keen to show themselves so Eric soon
realised that the best way to estimate their numbers would
be to count the numbers and species of the prey animals.
Many prey means good eating for a tiger to raise her cubs.
This work was far from glamorous. In 1975 poachers haunted
the park reserve, but from 1976 the Nepalese Army took
over
patrolling, so neither tigers nor their prey were hunted,
and the animal populations bounced back.
I loved the account of the painstaking, tedious surveying
work, despite the isolation which meant that Eric and his
guide travelled all day when they heard of a female
hydrologist in another valley. We learn how the gharial,
whose eggs were robbed by starving villagers, has been
saved from almost certain extinction. At this time there
were even freshwater dolphins high in the river but they
are now severely threatened by many dams. Observing from
tree platforms at night brought many other species to
Eric's attention. Eric explains as he goes, so the reader
learns terms like prey base and plant succession. When he
has completed this tale, Eric Dinerstein delights us by
going on to talk about his similar experiences tracking
snow leopards. He is now Lead Scientist and Vice
president
of the World Wildlife Fund (Worldwide Fund for Nature) in
the US. DISCOVERING BIG CAT COUNTRY is a thrilling and
detailed short read and I just wished it was longer.
With their elusive and solitary nature, tigers and snow
leopards are a challenge for even the most seasoned field
biologists to track and study. Yet scientist and
conservation leader Eric Dinerstein began his career in
the
heart of Nepal’s tiger country and the perilous Himalayan
slopes of the snow leopard, where he discovered the joys—
and
frustrations—of studying wildlife in some of the most
unpredictable and remote places on Earth.
In Discovering Big Cat Country, Dinerstein tells the story
of two formative journeys from his early days as a
biologist: two and a half years as a young Peace Corps
Volunteer in the jungles of Nepal and later, as a
newly-minted Ph.D., an arduous trek to search for snow
leopards in the Kashmir region of India. In these
chapters,
excerpted from Tigerland and other Unintended
Destinations,
Dinerstein paints an evocative picture of the homelands
and
habits of two fascinating predators, and recalls local
partners and fellow conservationists who inspired him with
their passion for wild places.
© 2003-2024 off-the-edge.net
all rights reserved Privacy Policy