Cubs at the Boundary Tank: Three Nights, Sixty Households
You are the beat guard for Block 4 of a tiger reserve in Rajasthan. On 28 May, with daytime temperature at 42°C, a camera trap at a village tank records a tigress with three cubs on three consecutive nights. The tank lies 1.8 km outside the core boundary, is the only water within 4 km, and is used daily by 60 households and about 250 head of livestock. Two days ago the tigress killed a goat 300 m from the village lane. The villagers now want the animal "removed" and have threatened to gherao the range office. A resort 700 m away has laid a concrete approach road across the boundary track and runs four jeeps a night along it. You have three forest guards, one jeep, and no tranquiliser team closer than 90 minutes.
1. Rank your actions for the next 72 hours and justify the order you have chosen.
Read the worked answer
Priority order is life safety, then containment of disturbance, then information flow.
- Report upward first, in writing. Range Officer, DFO and Chief Wildlife Warden get the camera-trap dates, GPS location and the livestock kill. A tiger with cubs is a Chief Wildlife Warden-level matter; delay here is the commonest failure.
- Request the Rapid Response Team for the 90-minute standby, but do not wait for it to act on the ground.
- Separate people from the tank between dusk and dawn. Advise the panchayat to water livestock at midday and to move in groups; no drum-beating, no firecrackers, no crowding the water. Reason: a tigress with cubs at 42°C will not abandon the only water within 4 km - chasing her only makes her move into the village at night.
- Stop night vehicle traffic on the boundary track from your barrier and record registrations.
- Keep daily camera-trap checks to confirm whether the family is settled, and log every sighting.
The logic is that removal is neither lawful nor useful here; reducing night-time contact is.
2. The villagers demand immediate removal of the tigress and payment for the goat. What do you do, and on what legal and policy basis?
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The tiger is a Schedule I animal under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. Neither a guard nor a range officer can order its killing or capture. Section 11 permits killing only in self-defence, and even then it must be reported; capture or translocation requires authorisation and a trained team, and national standard operating procedure for tigers in human-dominated landscapes treats capture as a last resort, not a response to one goat.
So:
- Tell the villagers plainly that you cannot promise removal, and explain who can and cannot decide.
- Take the compensation application for the goat in writing, give a dated receipt, and tell them the prescribed verification and sanctioning route. Do not promise an amount.
- Ask the panchayat to nominate two night watchers who will inform you, not confront the animal.
- Record every threat or attempt at poisoning or snaring, because retaliation is the real risk.
Documenting the complaint protects both the villagers' claim and the animal.
3. What is your lawful course of action on the resort's concrete road and its night jeeps?
Read the worked answer
First establish facts, because your powers depend on the land status. Check the working plan map and land records for whether the road, or any part of it, crosses forest land or falls inside the notified eco-sensitive zone of the reserve.
If it is forest land, breaking it up for a road is a non-forest use requiring prior approval under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980; if it is in the eco-sensitive zone, the zone notification governs construction. As a guard you do not demolish and do not seize a vehicle on your own. You record: GPS points, photographs with date, width and length, vehicle numbers, times of night entry, and names of resort staff. You submit this to the Range Officer and Field Director the same week and stop night entry at the barrier you man, politely and in writing.
Lodging the report promptly matters, because the offence is continuing and delay weakens the case.