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Locations

The Quest For Tigers

Delving into India’s wilder side, expedition leaders Susi Allison-Lama and Butch Lama give their perspective from the field on where to find and photograph the Royal Bengal tiger

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Their deep, rumbling roars echo through the verdant jungles where they hunt. Massive predatory machines that stalk silently and strike ferociously, they sit at the top of the complex food chain as dominant apex predators keeping the ecosystem in balance. For generations, tigers have captured the allure and imagination of people. Like all of the big cats, however, these magnificent predators are facing an uncertain future. With ever-shrinking habitat and the need to venture further afield to find their prey, the pressures on the world’s tiger populations could become too much for the animals to bear.

In India, tiger preservation is a mission of the government and local organizations that are fighting to help the tigers recover. Actual census numbers are in dispute (see the Census Note sidebar), but there’s little doubt that the situation is dire. Fortunately, organizations like Project Tiger and the National Tiger Conservation Authority have been empowered by the Indian government to meet the crisis head on and take action.

Complex and fascinating, India is famous for many compelling images, but none more so than those found in the protected, sometimes remote parts of India. Photographing the Royal Bengal tiger in the wild is an awe-inspiring experience one never forgets. Sighting this symbol of our fragile existence is a mysterious combination of luck, karma and skill.

Where To Go
The simple answer: Go where the tigers are. The better answer: Go where you have a realistic chance of seeing them. Tigers are found throughout India in various types of habitats. The settings themselves can be spectacular even before tigers enter the frame. Habitats both sustain and obscure your intended subject; they also give clues to the tigers’ behavior and the likelihood of finding and photographing them.

Some habitats are vast; others are dense. Each condition is unique, some posing difficulties in sighting and photographing tigers. Your subject may be too far away for all but the longest lenses. The dense jungle may make it difficult to focus on a moving target and starve your camera of light. Still other habitats conceal the tigers completely, seen only if they want to be seen.

In the north and northeast, tigers reside in the Himalayan foothills and Terai belt, where rivers flow in abundance and landscapes are varied and sometimes dense. In Central India, tigers thrive in a variety of settings—wooded streams, meadows, bamboo groves and rocky outcrops. To the west, they survive in the semi-desert state of Rajasthan. In the south, their tropical habitat is woodlands surrounding vast lakes.

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