Sunday, December 09, 2007
Villagers, bad advice, and an angry tiger
Bangladesh needs to work on its wildlife management:
Many were injured because a local official had suggested to them that they should try and capture the tigers using fishing nets - a ludicrous suggestion which made a desperate situation even worse.
It only gets better from there:
Nazrul Islam was one of the villagers present throughout the stand-off.
He says that he was one of the first to discover the tiger in the paddy field early in the morning.
"We wanted to frighten the animal off, and initially tried to do so by firing stones at it with slingshots," he said.
"When that didn't work, we tried to make a loud noise by clattering pieces of scrap metal with sticks. Later the police arrived and fired hundreds of blank shots, but all to no avail."
Mr Islam was one of the villagers who tried to catch the stricken animal using a fishing net.
"I remember at the time thinking maybe it wasn't such a good idea, but everyone wanted the animal to be driven away because of the dangers it posed to humans and livestock.
"I remember the tiger knocking my friend to the ground. I had no option but to try and save him, so it turned on me. Its claw ripped into my chest, I was frightened it was going to go for my neck, but I was able to stop it inflicting further injuries by repeatedly punching its mouth."
Remind me never to do that.
CWCID: Jungle Trader.
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Dec 09, 11:27:00 PM:
One would think that with a history of thousands of years of villages in South Asia dealing with tigers, that there would have been some folk wisdom remaining on the proper way to deal with a tiger.
In part, Conservatism means not throwing away wholesale what had worked in the past- such as the right way to deal with a tiger.
By 
jj mollo, at
Mon Dec 10, 01:04:00 AM:
The Darwin Awards should be notified. There's got to be some candidates somewhere in Bangladesh. There doesn't even appear to be any alcohol involved.
By D.E. Cloutier, at
Mon Dec 10, 10:37:00 AM:
In the old days, the villagers simple would have killed the tiger, BT. Now the animals are protected by law.
Here's how it works most of the time:
A tiger eats a villager. The government tries to relocate the cat and pays a small amount of compensation to the victim's family. Any villager who kills a tiger goes to jail.
The countries need to save the species. The countries also need the tigers for tourism dollars. New villagers are easy to get.
