How Ranthambhore worked overnight for a tigress for PM

Then, panicky officials sent out a message to rangers and forest guards to track down two tigresses, who had recently been spotted in the park with their cubs, sources said.

Armed with the knowledge that a tigress with newborn cubs would not wander far from her territory, rangers and guards started scanning the area for the two big cats.

Fresh ‘‘kills’’ were also scattered within the areas where they were last spotted to lure them out, sources said. The good news came after midnight when both the guards and the PM’s security staff reported the presence of a tigress near Jogi Mahal, the forest department guesthouse in the middle of the sanctuary.

Chief Wildlife Warden of the state R C Mehrotra and field director of the park Shafahat Hussain then joined the search party to ensure their quarry did not wander away.

‘‘They went into the jungle around 4 am armed with search lights,’’ said a senior police official in charge of security in the sanctuary. ‘‘The tigress was resting close to the road when the duo saw her first. she sat there for almost half an hour. And the two forest officials parked themselves close to her, hoping that she would not budge until the VIP visit. They kept sending messages to the PM’s staff to expedite his visit,’’ the official said.

But just as the PM’s six-vehicle cavalcade was about to enter the park, the tigress ambled across the road and disappeared into the Nal Valley. However, instead of going deeper into the jungle, she just climbed down a few rocks and sat down to relax.

That’s where the PM had his ‘‘first ever’’ encounter with a tigress. Fascinated, he watched her for nearly 10 minutes. ‘‘He asked what her name was and was told she was the Lady of the Lake,’’ sources said.

The PM then spent another three hours in the sanctuary but was unable to spot any other tiger. And by the time his safari returned to the Nal Valley, the Lady of the Lake had disappeared, too.

PM on sanctuary: Things not what they should be

: PRIME Minister Manmohan Singh, on a ‘‘learning mission’’ here, today avoided attacking the government on the disappearance of tigers from Sariska and Ranthambore but said ‘‘things are not what they should be’’. He said the government would take strict measures to protect the national animal from poachers.

Singh said the government would devise a long-term strategy for protecting tigers on the basis of the recommendations of the central task force set up to look into their disappearance.

He said the task force would submit its report in two months and the Centre would ‘‘honestly implement the recommendations’’. Asked if he was happy with the management of the Sariska and Ranthambhore reserves, the PM said he had not come here to find faults but to understand the ground reality. ‘‘But one thing is clear, things are not what they should be,’’ he said, adding that the Centre and the states would have to work together to evolve effective monitoring systems.

The PM said he had been told by field directors that the reserves and sanctuaries were understaffed, short of equipment and facilities; the present staff was ageing as well.

Singh said the task of protecting tigers involved better management of sanctuaries and dealing with the pressure that growing human population puts on forests. ‘‘We need a long-term strategy for generating livelihoods for people outside forests so that the traditional pressures on forest areas is reduced and people become protectors of forests,’’ he said.