National 3 (Spotlight Weekly)

Caring Tigers

After years of funding woes, Nepal's world renowned wildlife could finally receive the facilities they so desperately need.

by A Correspondent

When Pravesh Rana points over at a patch of high grass behind the King Mahendra Trust's main building in Sauraha, he's really gazing into the future.

“That's where we want to build the tiger enclosure,” he says, referring to one of many improvements to the complex on the edge of Royal Chitwan National Park that are now in the works with the recent creation of the Wildlife Welfare Center-Nepal.

The non-governmental organization was set up to provide facilities for the treatment, rehabilitation, and eventual reintroduction of orphaned and injured wildlife. And just a few steps away from the spot where Rana stands, proof of the desperate need for such programs is in clear evidence.

From inside a dark, wooden crate growls a young Royal Bengal Tiger cub. It is the sole survivor of a family of four. Its two siblings were savagely beaten to death by villagers in West Chitwan, and its mother was put down by park authorities after she attacked and killed several humans. It's a problem the wildlife technicians at the Trust face all too often.

“Nepal is a rich country in terms of wildlife reserves,” says Rana. “And then we have this problem. Last year, we had to carry out so many rescues of man-eating tigers, but they had to be killed. There was not place to put them. Sometimes they were killed by the villagers. They were poisoned, or shot.”

Nepal is home to the world's highest concentration of the endangered Royal Bengal Tiger and provides natural habitats for a long list of other threatened species including the Greater One-horned Rhino, the Snow Leopard, the Red Panda, and the Gharial Crocodile, to name just a few.

But despite the country's abundant natural treasures, wildlife protection groups have never had access to the financial resources to equal them, and the result has been that the kingdom's conservation infrastructure remains decades behind its regional neighbors. The nine wildlife technicians based in Sauraha are responsible not only for rescues in Royal Chitwan itself, but cover the entire country as well. And until now, despite their valiant efforts, they've been unable to keep up.

“If people see something, they call us, and we go there,” says Rana. “If you get a crocodile, there's a crocodile breeding center. You can send them there. If you get a tortoise, there's a tortoise breeding center. And you can send them there. But what about the tigers? What about the leopards? What about the other species? There should be one unit to deal with all the orphans and all the injured.”

With so much demand of their finite resources and because of a lack of treatment facilities, many of those animal's the Trust would like to treat, they've simply been forced to destroy. The WWC's rehabilitation facility is meant to provide an alternative. As part of a multi-phased project, the center plans to build several emergency cages for the containment and treatment of injured animals of all species. A large enclosure will be constructed to house captured man-eating tigers and their cubs. And a captive breeding facility and state-of-the-art veterinary hospital are also planned.

The facility will be the first of its kind in Nepal, and, though it will initially be based in Chitwan, will serve the entire kingdom with eventual expansions to other national reserves. The project is set to kick off in the coming months with the construction of the first emergency cages, but for the WWC this is only the beginning.

In an effort to drum up international support for the project, the organization is currently recruiting the help of a number of renowned wildlife experts from around the world, who, in the past, have in some way been involved with the King Mahendra Trust. The WWC is also approaching potential corporate sponsors and believes tourists to the area will play a vital role as well in ensuring the center is financially self-sustaining.

For Pravesh Rana the sky is the limit, and he sees the rehabilitation center as one day becoming a major flagship program for the Trust.

“It will all come step by step,” says Rana. “And we've stepped one step ahead. We don't want to go back. It has to come.”