Farewell to the Jungle Book - India's Last Tigers (11/35)

Farewell to the Jungle Book - India's Last Tigers (11/35)

The worst villain in "The Jungle Book" is Shirkan, a tiger. Yet the bad reputation of these animals is undeserved. Normally these big cats are very shy when they encounter people, yet only a few mavericks have sufficed to brand the tiger as a creature who devours human beings. This seems to be reason enough to hunt it relentlessly, thus virtually exterminating the species. Whether the tiger can survive the next two decades may be decided in the Satpurga Mountains, in the centre of the Indian subcontinent. Here, in contrast to isolated reserves, these magnificent big cats still find extensive, interconnected habitats. In this region, five years ago, the English Whittle family launched the project "LifeForce", and they now hope to realize their most important aim: protection of this species, i.e. the preservation of the tiger. Although, here too, poaching and deforestation threaten the future of the tiger, the Whittles hope that one day man and the tiger will be able to live in peaceful coexistence.