The hunter becomes the hunted

The hunter becomes the hunted

As a child, I always used to think the tiger was a killer. It could kill any animal, even humans, with ease. Later, much later, I was to discover how wrong I was. By that time, three tiger sub-species had already been lost.

Blame my ignorance on grandma's (for me grandpa's) tales. But the tales never encouraged us to kill the tiger. Instead, they taught us to respect it for its power, alertness and ferocity. Tragically, these very qualities have spelt the tiger's doom. The Caspian, Javan and Bali tigers are no more because of human encroachments into their habitats and the high price their skin and body parts fetched. There was a time in India during British rule when dozens (or even more) tigers used to be killed on a single hunting (sic) expedition.