Born to Hunt

Sept. 13, 2003
FREE STATE, South Africa — As a kid, John Varty couldn't get enough of Jim Corbett's gracefully written books, filled as they are with luridly bloody tales of his hunts in India for man-eating cats.

Tigers, as even their biggest fans will tell you, are dangerous creatures. They hold the dubious distinction of having killed more humans than any other cat species.

A tiger has impressive weapons in her arsenal, most notably the claws with which it grabs and pulls down prey, and the teeth, perfectly designed for sinking suffocation bites deep into the necks of prey.

Right now, I have a fascinating if unsettling close-up view of Julie's dew claw: a long, curved, razor-sharp nail used for grasping. It's the tiger's equivalent of a thumb.

Julie is perched on the sagging, dented roof of Varty's decrepit Land Rover. Her yard-long black-tipped tail hangs inches from my ear. It twitches to my most ginger touch.

Her front paws — the size of my hands with fingers flayed wide open — dangle limply onto the windshield at my eye level. The bulbous pads of her feet look like smooth, brown river rocks. They're thick and cushiony. No wonder she's such a stealthy hunter, as adept at traveling across boulders as in swamps.

A tiger's footprint is known as a pug mark. Like the spot pattern above a tiger's whiskers, a pug mark is unique to each tiger. Jim Corbett, who lived from 1875 to 1955 and wrote extensively about hunting, and later conserving, tigers, was an expert when it came to tracking pug marks. He could tell all kinds of things by looking at one, the most fundamental information being the gender of the tiger and what direction it was traveling in, and when it passed through an area and at what speed.

Pug marks are of interest not only to big game hunters, but also scientists. For 30 years pug marks have been used as a means to monitor and census wild tiger populations in India. However, a paper published earlier this year in the journal Animal Conservation criticizes the pug-mark method as being unreliable.

"This failure (of the pug-mark census method) has, inevitably, led to poor conservation practices," write the authors who include John Seidensticker, chairman of the Save the Tiger Fund. They say: "Field managers initially reported an increase in tiger population in 1994 despite mounting evidence of deteriorating reserve protection and increasing poaching pressure. Although the situation has not improved greatly ... recent pug-mark censuses are once again reporting increasing tiger numbers."

Seidensticker says point-blank that nobody knows how many tigers are in India. In short, the numbers that many folks casually reel off about tigers remaining in the wild may be wildly off.

Much scarier than the size of Julie's dew claws and canines is the fact that the tiger, already endangered, may be in more trouble than we even realize.

Julie hops off our vehicle to greet her brother, Ron. She rolls submissively on her back and puts a paw to his fuzzy face. All appears cuddly and playful when suddenly there is growling. The siblings square off, rear up to standing on their hind legs, and commence boxing. I see claws extended and teeth bared. The action moves from the ground into a nearby pepper tree, and back down again.

Varty is champing at the bit to film this action up close and personal. But it's too risky, he admits. We content ourselves with watching this uncharacteristic display of aggression from behind a scratched and dirty windshield. "Roll up your window," Varty instructs.

Varty guesses that perhaps Julie is coming into estrus and exhibiting mating behavior — a particularly dangerous time to deal with a cat. Ron might be feeling even more competitive toward other males (i.e., Varty) than usual.

"The closest we came to being taken out by these guys was when she was in estrus," Varty recalls.

The cats' behavior fascinates him. They're quick to anger, he says, but they don't hold grudges. Their moods are like the lightning that sparked the fire we just now notice on a distant hill, far across the flat, grassy karroo.

Varty compares the risks of hands-on work with "wild" tigers-in-training to being a jet pilot: "I can't assume that just because my last flight was safe that this one will be too," he says. "You can't get complacent. If you do, you're in trouble."

Varty has logged countless hours with these cats, accompanying them on 300-plus hunts in the hopes of teaching them to be "wild." His favorite memory illustrates their fickle natures. Varty was following Ron, who was hunting and in hot pursuit of an antelope. Varty took a bad spill, sending his camera crashing to the ground. After delivering the suffocation bite to the antelope — but before helping himself to one tasty morsel — Ron trotted back to Varty's side and licked him on the face.

A large-hearted gentleman, indeed.

Ron went back to his kill and began gorging himself. When Varty approached, camera repaired and rolling, Ron snarled, as if to say, "Back Off!"

Now, Ron and Julie seem no worse for wear, having settled their earlier dispute. Ron grooms himself and falls asleep. Julie lies relaxed in the grass, about 25 yards away.

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