Dan O’Neill (big cat scientist), and Sushila Mahatara (wildlife guide) check remote camera footage in Western Nepal.
To have seen three tigers in two days was a clear sign – this place was special.
Later the same day, we were very excited, as we briefly saw a female tiger on the road. And the following morning, at a campsite where we had spent the night, we saw first one, and then a second tiger cross the dry riverbed, just a couple of hundred meters from our tents. I count this as my first real sighting of a tiger, because I was able to see its blazing eyes. I found myself truly shocked at its enormous size – it felt comparable to watching a horse crossing the landscape.
To have seen three tigers in two days was a clear sign – this place was special. And so, over the following two years, our jungles team returned several times to Bardiya to film tigers, working closely with Sushila and her sister Manju in building up a detailed picture of the lives of a mother tiger, Goma, who the sisters had named after their grandmother, who at the time had three cubs. The result was a story which opened the Asia jungles film, titled “Tangled Worlds”, and showed Goma’s relentless determination to hunt and provide food for her family.
During the process, it occurred to me that Goma, her cubs, and other tigers we had been filming, were by now so familiar to us, they could form the subject of an entire film, or perhaps even a series of films. Crucially, we had recorded Goma mating with a huge male, so we knew she would have a set of new cubs in due course, and they could be the stars of the show.
To convince our commissioners, I was sent on a recce with Roger, our Executive Producer. I was deeply worried; month after month of heavy monsoon rains means the vegetation grows so high, so lush and dense, the chances of seeing a tiger become incredibly slim. If we didn’t see one, it could spell the end of the dream.
In a gap in the rains, we went for a walk, led by Sushila, Manju, and their younger sister Ranju, all carrying sticks. Pausing at the main river, we sent up the drone to look for tigers, discovering a mother rhino and tiny calf instead. It was a magical moment, for the sisters had never seen a rhino calf suckling, but from the drone, we were able to witness the tender scene.