Helen Blazis| Correspondent
While our main objective on this safari was to see tigers, I also wanted to see India’s deer. Though there’s not a single wild whitetail among them, thousands of unusual deer still roam the remaining forests of the Asian subcontinent.
I most wanted to see the little-known mouse deer, antler-less but fanged, with striking white stripes and spots. Weighing 4 to 8 pounds, they’re a bit bigger than their name suggests. Well adapted to water, they can dive and swim under the surface to avoid predators. The barking deer or Indian muntjac also has fangs, but is a species of primitive transition, developing small, rudimentary antlers. They weigh less than my Brittany. They do bark, and their vocalizations often signal the approach of a tiger, dhole (India’s wild dog), or hyen.
As a deer slayer, deer photographer, deer conservationist, deer eater — deer lover — I was in heaven watching them along with the 80-pound but stout, big-butted, and short-legged hog deer, having short, three-tined antlers. On numerous occasions, they would be spooked and vanish, alarmingly erecting their tail and giving out a low bark before scurrying into the grass with their lowered neck stretched out.
The spotted deer or chital is India’s most common deer, and about the size of a whitetail, a favorite item of the tiger’s diet. Their gorgeous coats with a dark spine streak give the species its very appropriate name. Their antlers are proportionately huge, though typically just three-tined on each side.
The 12-point barasingha or swamp deer, at 360 pounds looks much like an elk. During the rut, the stags bray loudly, and become a favorite food of tigers.
But India’s biggest deer of all, the 600-pound sambar, because of its size, is the preferred prey of tigers, wherever the sambar exist. The shaggy, dark brown sambar possess big antlers, with three points on each side. They typically feed in and around water, and we saw them on several occasions giving out their alarm call as either dholes or tigers hunted them.
Antelopes were also prominent on the tiger menu. The 400-pound nilgai or blue bull is India’s largest, shaped much like a horse, and sporting short vertical horns. Blackbucks are arguably the most beautiful antelope in the world, with white spectacles, black faces, and long spiral horns. It’s no wonder they were glorified in many Hindu and mythological texts. Watching the males prance with their horns held back and low, parallel to the ground is an impressive display. We saw them prank in alarm, springing vertical in a somewhat comical escape.
The 40-pound four-horned antelope, actually has one tiny set of horns where you’d expect them — and another much smaller set below them and between their eyes
For those who have been to the Masai Mara of the Serengeti, the Indian gazelle will remind you much of a cross between a Grants and Thompson’s gazelle.
We wanted to see the monkeys, and they didn’t disappoint us, both in the wild and in the villages, where they’ve come to coexist quite successfully, although not always with the best manners.
Males of many species have to establish their position. The rhesus macaques are common primates of both the forest and the city, where they’re fed. It’s the most widespread monkey of northern India. It’s quite aggressive, with a single male dominating groups. They typically gather around temples, expecting — even demanding — food handouts. The alpha males maintain their ranking by threat displays. They’ll typically shake branches, but in the cities, they’ll move car mirrors or even shake electric lines, sometimes causing local blackouts. Being a successful male means not being passive.
Hindus regard their hanuman langur, another primate, as a god. They regularly feed them in the cities, where the monkeys are abundant and far from shy. A single male langur dominates a large harem and is intolerant of any other males within his group.
These alpha males will actually kill all sub-adult or even baby males within their family, so young males lucky enough to survive quickly leave and form their own bachelor groups until they’re capable of taking over their own family group. Such infanticide is typical of lions, but hardly expected of relatives so genetically close to us. I recently watched langurs team up with chital, the common spotted deer of India.
What a great relationship they have. The ever-vigilant deer warn the langurs of approaching predators, while the langurs, during their sloppy feeding, drop hard-to-get canopy fruits and nutritious leaves down to the ground for the spotted deer.
Canids are more varied here in India. We would often first hear the Indian jackals howling before seeing them. We had hoped to see the Indian wolf, but their predilection for domestic livestock and consequential persecution made them hard to find. The Indian wild dog or dhole is a forest dog which hunts in packs, all the while yelping, whining, and whistling, before finally capturing and eating their prey alive, much like the African wild dog. Plain brown, they’re just not as pretty.
The Indian fox is a dainty version of our red fox.
But cats are what we came for. Big cats. Tigers! In India there is an expression: “There are those who have seen a tiger, and then there is everyone else.” We now were in that select group of those who have experienced the “fearful symmetry” of the tiger.
With stunning bird life, tantalizing cuisine, marvelous culture, and astounding architecture, like the Taj Mahal, India, with its great complexity and wildlife can rival Africa as a preeminent safari destination.
—Helen Blazis can be reached at MarkBlazisSafaris@gmail.com.
