Last week NatGeo contributor Jason Bittel reached out to talk about "the world's most famous tiger," Machli for the upcoming Big Cat Week series on NatGeo Wild. I anticipated being a source to support his article on Machli, but was surprised to find the article took on an interview style. Read it here and catch the episode Dec. 12 and 8pm CT on NatGeoWild. Machli was a world-wide celebrity bringing in millions of dollars to India from tourism, stamps, books and other merchandise. As a big cat admirer from a young age I had watched the several documentaries on NatGeo of Machli's life. When I was working in India in 2014 I heard rumors and then saw local news media highlighting the Forest Department's considerations of taxidermying Machli after she died. She was so famous and so beloved the Forest Department's fleeting idea to preserve her in perpetuity for future generations was understandable by some but generally caused uproar from the masses. The British Raj is saturated with images of military personnel and dignitaries standing over the carcasses of tigers. This history in tandem with India's post-Independence hunting ban (1972) likely lead to the public's heated reaction to the plan of taxiderming Machli.
But this was just the first of two major debates. With interspecific fighting in Ranthambhore, human-tiger conflict, and the general difficulties of tiger life, Machli became a natural enigma: an elderly tigress. Machli at 19 year old, without her canine teeth and blind in one eye, became an ethical conundrum. The Forest Department was forced to confront Machli's reality of starvation in hr current state or, to do something about it and feed her. The chose the later. I explore the consequences in an article published in Geoforum in early 2017. Comments are closed.
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