"I love India." "India is my home." "Her people are my people." "India is also the home of the great Bengal Tiger." "A myriad of words could be found to describe both." "But to share my deepest feelings for India and the tiger is almost impossible, for they have been my life." "To me, the tiger is the noblest citizen of India." "And India is..." "the kingdom of the tiger." "Look at those eyes." "There is nothing that compares to the feeling of having a Bengal Tiger look right through you and being able to photograph it at the same time." "You may not believe this, but I tracked this old female for what seemed like a hundred miles." "You did finally "bag" the tiger" "No..." "You did hunt tigers, didn't you, Mr. Corbett?" "Even I have heard of the great tiger hunter of India." "The truth is that before Jim Corbett became a famous tiger conservationist, he was a famous tiger hunter." "There was a time in his life when he would've "bagged the tiger"" "and thought nothing of it." "So it was very difficult for people in Jim's time to understand how he could possibly come to prefer hunting tigers with a camera rather than with his rifle." "The answers are not simple." "But, in part, they can be found in events of which he wrote, where people and tigers came tragically too close together." "These were days of long ago, when Jim Corbett took up his rifle to hunt for man-eating tigers." "Northern India, 1910" "Shanta?" "Shanta?" "Shanta?" "Shanta was killed in an instant." "Her sister Gya escaped, but she would never escape the terrible memory of that day." "Word of the attack spread quickly." "Men from the surrounding villages marched through the countryside hoping to drive the tiger away." "Gya and the other women prayed earnestly for their success." "Bounty hunters were even called in, but the tiger eluded them all." "Finally, after 24 people had been killed by this same tiger, the village headman wrote to Jim Corbett asking him to come and help." "Jim, you see, had grown up in these hills." "He knew these jungles better than anyone." ""Dear Mr. Jim Corbett, respected sir..." ""Dreadful tragedies have occurred." ""Please come in haste to our village to help us." ""For this act of kindness we, the public, will be highly obliged and we pray for your long life and prosperity."" "Tell them I'm coming." "He immediately arranged to rush to the hills to help his friends." "But, the retelling of a tiger hunt alone will not give you a true understanding of Jim Corbett's journey of change." "For this, you must know something of his deep affection for this land and for her people." "India stretches out from the Asian continent into the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal." "It has always been a crossroads between the European and Far Eastern worlds." "The sweep of life across India has been truly astonishing." "Nomadic merchants and explorers have crisscrossed her plains and deserts for thousands of years." "Many great civilizations flourished and fell." "Archeologists continue to discover remnants of societies that may have predated even the Egyptians and Mesopotamians." "India is a land that has been sought after by most of the great empires of the world and they have all left their mark on her." "But in the end, India has somehow transformed them all... and made them a part of her fabric." "The corner of India where Jim Corbett was born and raised is called Kumaon." "It is a land of towering hills and deep-cut valleys, resting at the foot of the great Himalayan Mountains." "I love the people of these hills." "They are honest, loyal, hard-working souls whose only wish is to peacefully enjoy the fruits of their labors." "Hello!" "Hello!" "And their lives were wonderfully peaceful, except when their lives crossed over the paths of a man-eating tiger." "I see a tiger has again brought you up from the plains." "Bless you for coming" "My blessings with you on your venture to bring back peace to our village." "There are not words to describe the intense fear that settles into the hearts of people when a man-eating tiger is on the loose." "I'm so sorry." "Shanta's family was still deeply stricken with grief." "Their lives had been turned upside-down." "Indeed, I can tell you, my own life had been dramatically shaped by such calamitous events." "On past hunts for man-eating tigers," "I came to understand the fear these people felt." "Searching the jungle like a detective," "I often came face-to-face with that uneasy balance between man and tiger." "In these grim and dangerous encounters of days past, compassion for the tiger began to emerge that I had never felt before... or perhaps I had simply chosen to ignore it." "Jim always disliked the perception that he was somehow coming to the 'rescue' of his friends in the foothills." "When possible, he relied on them to show him where to begin looking for the tiger and then to help him find it." "Gya summoned the courage to lead Jim to a place where she had again seen the tiger just days before." "And so their journey began, walking mile after mile without seeing a trace of the tiger." "In ages past, however a careful observer could not have walked through these jungles very far without seeing at least one of these magnificent gold- and black-striped predators." "This was a time when thousands of tigers roamed India and its neighboring lands." "It has sometimes been called "The Tiger Raj"" "or "The kingdom of the tiger."" "Tigers seemed to be everywhere." "For the tiger you see, is incredibly adaptable, capable of surviving in extreme environments and climates." "For thousands of years, the tiger has held a unique place in the hearts and minds of the Indian people." "It has been both feared and revered." "One of the most worshipped Hindu gods is Durga, the embodiment of divine power." "She is always seen riding on a tiger, charging to battle wicked demons." "But this reverence for the tiger has also had a particularly dark side." "There was a time when tigers were hunted for the pride and prestige that came with killing them." "To kill a tiger often became an important part of a young prince's rite of passage into manhood." "During the time of British rule, even more tigers were killed." "Men on the ground drove tigers into a phalanx of elephants." "The hunters on top were left with the easiest of shots." "Only the very wealthy could afford this," "But no one, including Jim Corbett, for a time, seemed to understand or even care for that matter, what the future consequences of this reckless over-hunting would be." "People might wonder how someone like myself could come to be so completely at home in the jungle." ""I loved it" is the simplest answer." "As a little boy," "I began to categorize wildlife by the contributions they make." "There are birds and other animals which bring beauty." "Others like the langur monkey, warn of danger." "When elephants forage in the jungle, they can seem terribly destructive, but they are actually regenerating the jungle garden." "Even common vultures play a vital role;" "Their scavenging helps clean up the forests." "It became clear to me that all these creatures served an amazing function, and at the top of them all, were mighty predators, like the tiger." "Each time a tiger kills its prey, it creates a chain reaction of sorts, that trickles down through all of the animal and plant life within that tiger's territory." "Without predators like the tiger, forests and grasslands can become overgrazed and the life-giving water they help to create could stop flowing." "Stay as quiet and as close to me as you can." "Sahib!" "Tiger was following me Sahib." "Come down!" "The often calm response of villagers, even when faced with grave danger always fascinated Jim Corbett." "Although not a religious man himself, he still sensed that this calmness came from a deep spirituality, as ancient as the land itself." "India is a land of rich spiritual history." "As with all deeply religious cultures, strong contradictions often emerge." "But what Jim so keenly observed is that the diverse faiths of India do not live only in temples, mosques, shrines and churches." "They are everywhere." "In India, faith and spirituality have guided her compassion for the tiger and indeed, for all living things." "After seeing our friend in the tree safely home, we set to work building a small platform in a tree near a dead fawn." "Hopefully it would lure the tiger in when night fell." "There is a common belief that all tigers are natural man-eaters." "This could not be further from the truth." "This could not be further from the truth." "A tiger is most likely to kill humans because old age, sickness, and injury, or the loss of habitat prevent it from hunting its normal prey." "Tigers are solitary creatures." "But since they must often compete for space with people, especially in India, this can lead to dangerous, and even deadly encounters." "Even without this competition for space, survival for a tiger is not easy." "About half of all tiger cubs live no longer than a year." "However, not all the cards are stacked against them." "Some people believe that the spots on the back of a tiger's ears can actually help young cubs to escape attack, because a predator may perceive that the cub is somehow looking at them." "The stripes of a tiger are like fingerprints." "No two tigers have the exact same pattern." "Tiger cubs learn to hunt and all other essential tools for survival from their mother." "After 18 months, she finally boots them out so they can begin to establish their own territory." "The availability of food determines the size of a tiger's territory, which is marked by spraying urine or scratching trees." "Tigers are different in certain ways from other big cats." "A leopard, for instance, can easily scale a tree with a deer in its mouth." "But due to its large size and weight, a tiger can actually get stuck up a tree, only able to come back down again by sliding backwards." "This is why climbing a tree to escape a prowling tiger can be such a good idea." "Swimming near a tiger, on the otherhand, would not be a good idea." "They love the water and are remarkable swimmers." "The webbing between their toes enables them to swim many miles at a stretch." "And some tigers have actually been known to swim distances of 15 miles or more." "Tigers are the largest of all cats." "They can grow to lengths of ten feet or longer and weigh in at more than 500 pounds!" "Unlike lions, which are very social, adult tigers like to live and hunt alone, and they are very skillful solitary predators." "Tall grass is their special domain." "Using their stripes as camouflage, when the time is right, they explode toward their prey with tremendous speed." "Tigers can eat as much as 65 pounds of meat at one time." "A single tiger can consume nearly 5,000 pounds of meat in one year!" "Much of their diet is deer and wild boar, but if they are hungry enough, they will not hesitate to help themselves to just about anything they can catch." "Like most big cats, tigers usually hunt between dusk and dawn, depending on their hearing and sight, which is far better than that of humans." "This helps the tiger move through the darkness of the jungle with the stealth and silence... of a phantom." "I believe it is safe to say that Jim felt a strange mixture of emotions after returning from the hunt of a man-eater - relief at seeing peace return to the village, but also sadness at knowing this peace had come" "with the death of such a majestic animal." "It was these feelings that ultimately moved him to work to protect tigers and their habitat." "As the years went by, I returned to the jungle over a dozen more times to hunt for man-eaters." "With each of these experiences, I realized the need to find ways for tigers and people to live together/ or risk losing the tiger forever." "So, I found another way of hunting tigers, at times more difficult and dangerous perhaps, but always more rewarding." "It seemed to me, that if I could capture on film the majestic, yet fragile beauty of these great cats, if people could see tigers for themselves, it could perhaps become a step in the direction of conserving them." "For the tiger represents not just a magnificent predator, but the health of the entire jungle-garden." "It is the leaves of a tree, a thicket of bamboo, a mountain stream that feeds water into rivers and eventually reaches the people of the plains below." "Armed with a camera, I hoped to help people see and understand the vital role predators like the Tiger play... in the lives of us all." "Jim Corbett was one of the true pioneers of conservation, at a time when many people barely knew what the word meant." "He traveled often to tell people of his amazing adventures in the jungles." "Through his films and books," "Jim worked to share his message that the tiger must be protected, and his hope, that India would always be the 'Kingdom of the Tiger.'" "But Jim's efforts were only a beginning." "The time of danger for the tiger is far from over." "Let us leap ahead now, from Jim Corbett's time, to our own." "As many as 40,000 tigers may have prowled India in his day;" "fewer than 3000 may now survive..." "Every year, hundreds of tigers are illegally killed for their body parts." "But the major threat to the tiger continues to be the gradual yet relentless, erosion of its habitat by people." "In Jim's time, the population of India was already 400 million." "Now, over 1 billion people have spread their lives across the land." "The Bengal tiger is standing on the precipice of extinction." "Does it Matter?" "All of life is connected, like the links of a chain." "If the tiger slips away into extinction, the effects will be felt throughout all the chain of life." "Despite the challenges of its enormous population," "India has committed itself to the conservation of this majestic predator." "In India, this remarkable understanding that the tiger must be saved is not grounded only in scientific facts and statistics." "Respect for the natural role of the tiger and for all living things is deeply woven into her culture." "It is part of how millions of Indians naturally think and feel." "But they cannot succeed alone." "Perhaps I can explain it best in this way..." "In India, there is a legend that tells of a wise and gentle spirit who walks the land." "She creates and inspires the fine balance of life that pervades everything." "She represents a noble idea, a symbol of respect for nature, and, most importantly, she is a kind invitation, to those who live even far beyond India's shores... to do their part." "Jim Corbett's great hope was that the tiger and India might flourish together again." "He demonstrated that compassion and understanding lead to action." "And where there is action, there is always hope - hope that this mighty predator will not only survive, but thrive and perhaps, one day..." "reclaim its kingdom." "In 1957, India created the first of 23 national parks to conserve tigers and their habitat." "It was named "Corbett National Park.""