Discovering Big Cat Country: On the trail of tigers and snow leopards

By Eric Dinerstein

With their elusive and solitary nature, tigers and snow leopards are a challenge for even the most seasoned field biologists to track and study. Yet scientist and conservation leader Eric Dinerstein began his career in the heart of Nepal’s tiger country and the perilous Himalayan slopes of the snow leopard, where he discovered the joys—and frustrations—of studying wildlife in some of the most unpredictable and remote places on Earth. In Discovering Big Cat Country, Dinerstein tells the story of two formative journeys from his early days as a biologist: two and a half years as a young Peace Corps Volunteer in the jungles of Nepal and later, as a newly-minted Ph.D., an arduous trek to search for snow leopards in the Kashmir region of India. In these chapters, excerpted from Tigerland and other Unintended Destinations, Dinerstein paints an evocative picture of the homelands and habits of two fascinating predators, and recalls local partners and fellow conservationists who inspired him with their passion for wild places.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Island Press
• Release date: Feb 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781610914796

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E-book cover: "Discovering Big Cat Country" by Eric Dinerstein Cover design: Maureen Gately Cover images: (Top) Mountain View from Leh, Ladakh by Jamesgritz and (Center) Snow Leopard by kevdog818. Courtesy of iStockphoto.com

Discovering

Big Cat

Country

On the trail of tigers and snow leopards

Eric Dinerstein

234.jpg

Washington | Covelo | London

© 2013 Eric Dinerstein

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without permission in writing from the publisher: Island Press, 2000 M Street NW, Suite 650, Washington DC 20036

ISLAND PRESS is a trademark of the Center for Resource Economics.

ISBN: 978-1-61091-479-6

Cover design: Maureen Gately

Cover images: (Top) Mountain View from Leh, Ladakh by Jamesgritz and (Center) Snow Leopard by kevdog818. Courtesy of iStockphoto.com

Keywords: tigers, snow leopards, Nepal, India, Kashmir, conservation biology, Peace Corps

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Contents

Island Press E-ssentials Program

Tigerland

Kingdom of the Snow Leopard

About the Author

Learn More | Further Reading

About Island Press

Island Press | Board of Directors

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Tigerland

The quiet, serious tiger specialist

we had met for the first time that afternoon motioned for the Nepalese driver to stop the Jeep. Mel Sunquist was taking us along to check on the whereabouts of his tigers, the first ever to be fitted with radiotelemetry collars. It felt great to be on the prowl this hot spring night in April 1975—just like the tigers, even more so because researchers are required to be out of the park by sundown. Engaging in this illegal activity only added to our excitement. My fellow Peace Corps volunteers and I quietly stepped out of the Jeep and onto the dirt road that cuts through Royal Chitwan National Park.

We were elated to escape the crowded, dusty bazaars of Kathmandu to tag along with a tigerwallah like Mel. Soon we would all be posted as ecologists in some of the wildest and most remote places in Asia. And after two months of relentless language training—conjugating Nepali verbs and learning the local names for tiger (baagh), elephant (haathi), and sloth bear (bhalu)—it was high time to see a baagh for real. Standing silently in the receding heat of evening, we listened to the strange percussion of large-tailed night-jars and the distant alarm barks of spotted deer. I felt a million miles from home. Only a few months back, we had been faceless undergrads in the United States. Now, dressed in army surplus pants and T-shirts, we were a platoon of budding young American field biologists stationed in the heart of Tigerland.

Mel switched on the receiver, raised an antenna over his head, and began slowly rotating it in a wide arc, a ballet movement used by hundreds of field biologists before him to locate their study animals, except that Mel was homing in on the largest terrestrial carnivore on Earth. We felt no small amount of fear but tried our best to appear nonchalant. Mel’s Nepalese coinvestigator, Kirti Man Tamang, was in the hospital back in Kathmandu, after being pulled out of a tree and mauled by a tigress only a few weeks earlier. Believing the conventional wisdom that tigers were reluctant tree climbers, Kirti had wedged himself into the crotch of a tree, waiting for the right moment to fire a tranquilizing dart. The tigress, evidently seeing Kirti as a threat to her three young cubs, defied conventional wisdom and scaled the tree. The thought of Kirti lying helpless on the ground, his legs badly shredded and an angry tigress standing over him, made me think twice about wandering far from the Jeep.

The tiger Mel sought was barely within range, so he tried the frequency of another. I think we have a tigress very close by. His voice was animated, or at least as animated as his Minnesota origins would allow. Within seconds of his warning, a fierce struggle between the tigress and a large deer had us all scrambling back into the Jeep. The tigress in question had been right next to us, hidden from view by a wall of Chitwan’s elephant grass, lying in ambush for, as we would later learn, a sambar, or Indian forest deer. Only the tigress’s snarl and the beeps seeping from Mel’s headphones signaled our proximity to this secretive predator.

Back at the Smithsonian research camp, over glasses of warm Coke spiked with local rum, we chattered away about our first adventure with the king of the Terai Jungle. But the night wasn’t over. We shifted to a small clearing near the banks of the Rapti River, where we had pitched our tents. Nepali language instructors, all of whom were well-educated, charming Kathmandu dwellers, as new to life in the lowland jungles as we were, were paired up as tent mates with American volunteers. My favorite teacher was Narayan Kazi Shrestha, a bright, fun-loving man who eventually bestowed upon me the gift of fluency in another language and the self-confidence that comes with it.

But on this night, my tent mate was Surya Sharma, a studious, high-caste Brahmin in his early twenties and the son of a famous Nepalese judge. As we were drifting off to sleep, the sound of loud chewing and lip smacking stirred us awake. Surya peered through the insect netting. He reached over and clutched my arm. Rhinos! he whispered fearfully, using the English rather than the Nepali word (gaida), not wanting to gamble our lives on my Nepali vocabulary. We had been warned earlier that rhinos routinely trample and kill several tourists each year. I peeked through the fly mesh. Surya’s grip tightened. I saw an enormous greater one-horned female rhinoceros accompanied by a calf. Eventually, they wandered

Reviews for Discovering Big Cat Country

[dokfintong · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I received a review copy of Discovering Big Cat Country by Eric Dinerstein (Island Press) through NetGalley.com.Eric Dinerstein presents two personal essays in this book. Although they are good examples of the form, their presentation here is not satisfying, a fault I lay squarely on the editors at Island Press. This book is a #1 gift choice for anyone who knows Nepal and especially Peace Corps/Nepal in that era. I showed it to a former Peace Corps/Nepal Country Director who is now trying to get autographed hard copies for various libraries in Nepal and as gifts to veteran Peace Corps/Nepal language teachers and volunteers.For outsiders, though, there is not enough framing material about Dinerstein's life and Himalayan cats. Island Press should flesh out these bare bones essays with maps, species lists, drawings, and other general information that general interest readers appreciate.