Water for Bandhavgarh's Tigers - Reducing Conflict

Winter always brings many new challenges both for fundraising and our work in India and in the last quarter we have certainly seen a few. We have had a busy few months with all our projects since our last report and this has challenged our resources too. Before I continue, I must thank you for your continued loyal and generous support of our work, especially in respect of our efforts to reduce human-wildlife conflict, which has been increasing at an alarming rate in the last couple of years, As we strive to ensure that wild tigers can have the wild future they deserve, we must adapt and respond quickly to the changing environment in which they live. Without your help and the generous grant funds which we received from four charitable trusts we would not have been able to complete the work we have done in the last quarter. Thank you again, for your continuing loyal support.

When Disaster Strikes

As the monsoon season drew to a close in late September, we were pleased to have had the opportunity to complete work at 4 waterholes at a time of year when such work always proves challenging, then disaster struck! Heavy rains washed away the retaining wall at the newly constructed Bhainsmooda waterhole emptying hundreds of gallons of precious water into the nearby nala and leaving virtually no water for wildlife in this dry but precious tiger habitat. Urgent action was required to rebuild the retaining wall and reinforce it to prevent any repeat in future monsoons. The costly repairs were thankfully completely in just over 4 weeks, as soon as access conditions enabled us to get the materials and labour on site. On the positive side, a large wildlife waterhole in critical wild tiger habitat is now complete and attracting many wild animals including wild tigers. On the negative side our waterhole project funds were severely depleted by an additional £1200 (US$1560) which will have a knock-on impact on future projects until more funds can be raised. If you are able to help at all, all donations however large or small will be most welcome https://goto.gg/34315.

In the last month we experienced a second disaster at another waterhole site in the Magdhi Core area at Murdhawa. Again, this is a critical wildlife waterhole in a very dry area of forest habitat used by more than eight wild tigers, leopards and wild elephants. Without the Tigers4Ever waterhole, human-wildlife conflict will increase as wild animals will enter the villages beyond the core forest boundary in search of both water and food. Construction at the Murdhawa waterhole had continued into the festive period despite freezing cold temperatures and foggy conditions hampering work efforts. On Christmas Day whilst flushing sand from the borewell so that the new solar pump could be connected, disaster struck, and the borewell collapsed. The damage, in part due to historical attacks by wild elephants, was irreparable and a new borewell was needed at a nearby site but would cost almost £1400 (US$1870) to complete. We had no choice, this is a critical wildlife waterhole and natural water sources are already running dry in the surrounding area, seasonal streams and rivers previously filled by monsoon rainfall are now sandy beds betwixt the forest canopy. So we had to start drilling a new borewell as a priority before wild animals die as a result of human wildlife conflict. Work is currently underway at the new borewell, and we hope that the Murdhawa waterhole will be full again within the next week. Our future projects will however, be paused whilst we try to raise at least another £2600 ($3430) to get back on track with our current project schedule. If you are able to help at all, all donations however large or small will be most welcome https://goto.gg/34315

Our work at the Salkhania waterhole, still awaits completion too as a different kind of disaster struck and impacted our efforts in late October/early November. Those of you who follow our other projects and our social media channels will know that13 wild elephants were poisoned (10 of them fatally), 2 humans were killed when the 3 surviving elephants attacked their village in retaliation for the deaths in their herd, and an alpha male tiger, known as Chota Bheem was snared in a wire noose laid by bush meat poachers. Chota Bheem evaded attempts to rescue him and remove the noose for almost 10 days, but he injured his neck further and his paw as he desperately tried to free himself from his wire burden. Forest department officials and the vet took the decision to tranquilise Chota Bheem and take him to the veterinary centre at Bhopal zoo for the surgical removal of the snare, treatment of his infected wounds and repairs to his injured paw. It has since been decided that Chota Bheem’s injuries were too severe, as his canines were also broken, so he will spend his remaining life in Van Vivar in Bhopal. This is a very sad end for the life of a magnificent male tiger and also bad news for his surviving cubs as he will no longer be around to protect them from other intruding male tigers. In fact at the time of writing this report, two of Chota Bheem’s cubs have already been killed by his brother Pujari and we suspect that others will die too as Pujari conquers his brother’s former territory and seeks to mate with his females.

Even though two months have passed since this human-wildlife conflict hit a crescendo, the unrest is still a major issue and thus all work by external parties (including Tigers4Ever) is paused. This doesn’t just impact our efforts to complete our wildlife waterhole work but also our attempts to launch our pilot forest rehabilitation (Tree and grassland planting) project which is desperately needed. We plan to resume work as soon as possible and continue to monitor the situation daily.

A New Waterholes and More Repairs

We do have some good news too! In the last quarter, we completed work at the Pachpedi core waterhole where we increased the size of an existing waterhole to 5x its original size and replaced the solar pump with a higher capacity option to fill the larger waterhole. This will not only provide much needed year-round water for wildlife in an otherwise dry forest area, it will reduce risks to the lives of the brave anti-poaching patrollers who live, eat and sleep at the nearby patrolling camp and were frequently attacked by wild elephants who looked for water in their camp as the wildlife waterhole was too small for elephants. We have also completed work at a new waterhole at Takhti in the core forest which will benefit at least 6 wild tigers and countless other wild animals. To date, and on completion of the work at Salkhania, it means that Tigers4Ever is providing year-round water for around 134 wild tigers (around 60% of all Bandhavgarh’s wild tigers) and thousands of other wild animals, many of which are endangered species, which otherwise wouldn’t flourish without risky incursions into the villages which surround the periphery of their forest home.

Monsoon rainfall and flood waters always bring plenty of challenges in terms of waterhole maintenance and repairs and 2024 was no exception. It the last quarter we have been working on repairs at both the Arharia (3 waterholes) and Rajberha (5 waterholes) sites to both flush sand from the borewells and improve elephant proofing of the solar arrays, this work is ongoing and hopefully will complete in the next month, subject to weather conditions as both locations are extremely dangerous for workers when heavy fog and freezing winter temperatures combine. With our waterhole project funds and repairs and maintenance funds completely depleted we hope that the next quarter will be incident free and that our fundraising efforts will prove more fruitful in 2025. Each year we need an additional £2000 ($2600) to ensure repairs and maintenance can be undertaken when needed at the 25 Tigers4Ever wildlife waterholes so more funds are urgently needed. If you are able to help at all, all donations however large or small will be most welcome https://goto.gg/34315.

Reducing Conflict with Solar-Powered Lighting

In 2024, we received Grant funding from 4 charitable trusts which enabled Tigers4Ever to extend its project to reduce human-wildlife conflict by installing Solar-powered PIR street lighting at 35 new high-risk locations. Tigers4Ever is grateful to the following Trusts for their help with this vital initiative: CB and HH Taylor 1984 Trust; Marsh Charitable Trust; Joanna Toole Foundation; and Majorie Coote Animal Charity Trust; without which we would have been unable to expand this project to the 55 locations now protected by Tigers4Ever installed Solar-Powered Street lighting.

These solar streetlights provide illumination at the edge of the forest where wild tigers, elephants, leopards, sloth bears and other animals enter the villages during the hours of darkness to raid and feast on crops and kill livestock/humans. Traditionally machan lookouts in the fields would be sufficient to protecting crops from intruding wildlife but the growing wild elephant population is undeterred by traditional protection mechanisms and loss of life is sadly not uncommon as the farmers try in vain to save their crops from these huge wild animals with voracious appetites. As wild animals approach the new solar-powered lights, their movement triggers the PIR sensors which intensive the brightness ten-fold causing the animals to turn back into the forest without the human conflict which risks the lives of both the intruding animal and their human counterparts.

Since the launch of this initiative in March 2024, the original 10 villages in the pilot project have remained intrusion free for 42 weeks which is a stark change from the almost nightly intrusions prior to the installations. This is good news for both the humans, and the wild tigers too as they are not subjected to retaliatory attacks from angry farmers and other locals. Our solar powered street lighting project is now proving successful in helping to reduce the risk of retaliatory poisoning and the risk of wild animals being captured and sent to zoos at 55 locations. Good news for sure. Whilst there is still a long way to go with this project, we cannot stand still as wild tiger and other wildlife numbers increase future human-wildlife conflict is inevitable. Tigers4Ever waterholes and other innovative solutions increase in importance each day so we must look for new ways to fund future projects alongside those we are already committed to complete. Your kind donations are essential to ensure that we can make wildlife waterholes possible and to complete other projects to reduce human-wildlife conflict. Whilst our efforts to fight the effects of climate change on wild tigers need to continue too. Without your help we won’t be able to provide more safe forest homes for dispersing young wild tigers! Please help, if and whenever you can, as tomorrow may be too late. https://goto.gg/34315.

More Help is Needed

To sustain the growth Bandhavgarh’s wild tiger population, more permanent wildlife waterholes are needed in areas which can support both prey and predator dispersal. More than 16 priority locations have been identified and work is underway to determine the availability of underground water sources for solar pump systems and other sites more suited to rainwater harvesting projects. Sadly though we only have sufficient funds for the one waterhole we are currently committed to construct. Thus, it will be a major challenge for Tigers4Ever to provide more wildlife waterholes right now when they are needed most, as fundraising is still challenging. Your support and donations continue to be vital to ensuring that our waterholes project (https://goto.gg/34315) can address the need as soon as is possible. We will need to raise at least another £25000/US$33250 to provide another 3 medium-large sized waterholes and 16+ are needed which will cost at least another £133350/$177350 to complete! With funding we can mobilise local labour, but without it this it will take too much time.

The best way to reduce Human-Wildlife conflict is to prevent the prey animals and their predators from going to the villages in search of water and food. Thus, we prioritise our permanent wildlife waterhole projects, every year, as the drought season takes hold. As Winter passes the last few seasonal waterholes, streams and rivers will run dry, and then the need for our permanent wildlife water sources will be vital to the survival of many wild tigers.

Imagine just 500 of you read this report and donate just £10 ($13) per month each, we could raise enough funds to provide 1 more waterhole in just 2 months which would be amazing: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/water-for-bandhavgarhs-tigers/?show=recurring. If you can help us to do this now you will be helping to make a difference for so many wild tigers.

Permanent wildlife waterholes are critical to prevent future tiger-tiger and human-animal conflict, which arise from increased wild tiger numbers, and better cub survival rates. There are currently more tiger cubs (75) in Bandhavgarh than the total number of wild tigers (37) counted in the 2010 Tiger Census, when Tigers4Ever started work there. One waterhole isn’t enough to reduce the conflict caused by wild tigers encroaching on the territories of other tigers and humans, so we need your help to provide at least 2 more waterholes soon, before it is too late for the wild tigers and other wildlife: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/water-for-bandhavgarhs-tigers/.

Our Challenges Ahead  

We need to keep wild tigers safe every day. Our anti-poaching patrols are tripled right now to counter the risks of retaliatory poisoning and poaching. With your help we can complete another 2 waterhole projects sooner which will help us to keep at least 16 more wild tigers including cubs safe.

Your donations will help us to save wild tigers by funding the following:

- £10 ($13) per month for a year will help to drill 12 metres (39 feet) of bore-well to access underground water;

- a one-off £20 ($26) gift will help to drill 2 metres (6.5 feet) of bore-well to access underground water;

- a one-off £40 ($52) gift will help to drill 4 metres (13 feet) of bore-well to access underground water;

- £90 ($117) can pay a team of workers to prepare a site for a new waterhole for wild tigers;

- £120 ($169) can cover the cost of labour and preparation of a 1.5 metre wide by 1.5-metre-deep elephant proof moat to protect a solar-pump system;

- £2000 ($2600) will enable the creation and lining of one larger waterhole.

Every donation, no matter how large or small, helps to increase and protect the wild tiger population. Thank you on behalf of the wild tigers, which you help us to keep safe; and on behalf of the wider tiger community in Bandhavgarh, which benefits from providing equipment and labour for our waterhole projects. We couldn’t do this without you, thanks to you, the wild tigers can live peacefully and those who live beside them can protect their livelihoods.

All donations are welcome https://goto.gg/34315. If you can’t afford to donate perhaps you could become a Tigers4Ever fundraiser, here: https://www.globalgiving.org/dy/v2/fundraisers/start/?fundraiser.projids=34315 and ask your friends, colleagues and family to donate to your fundraiser to help us keep wild tigers safe.

Links:

• Tigers4Ever website
• Become a Fundraiser for wild Tigers
• Buy Greetings Cards to help save wild Tigers