End of a Clan

This afternoon I received a call, the caller was regular but the message was shocking.

Barely a few hours back, while compiling my daily sighting report, I had received a report of her sighting & now comes the news of her death. A beautiful and healthy tigress who was probably 6-7 years old is suddenly dead. T37, resident tigress of Quaal Ji zone no 9 was found dead today afternoon by safari drivers who were on a regular drive in that zone. The same tigress was sighted in morning safari as well, people who saw her wouldn’t have known that they were seeing her for the last time ALIVE. The reason for death is still not known, though there are no external injury marks on the body. Postmortem would be conducted this morning to ascertain the exact reason for her death, some judgments on reasons for death have already been passed on social networking sites ….. Would still prefer to wait, till the final word is out.

Her untimely death marks the end of a clan the famous ‘Guda Clan’ of Ranthambhore. T37 was the last surviving member of this clan here & her death brings an end to the legacy of this clan at Ranthambhore. The Matriarch T15, sister of legendary Machli and mother of T37 & T36 was poisoned by villagers in Sep 2008. Her brother T36 who was also a resident of Quaal Ji died on 24th Oct 2010 in a territorial fight, supposedly killed by T42 another resident and an aggressive male. The other two members of this clan T21 & T12 from the previous litter of T15 also are no longer in Ranthambhore. While T21 had gone missing in Oct 2007 and a poacher confessed to killing him in Nov 2007, his brother T12 was shifted to Sariska in July 2010.

Ironically two cubs of T13 aka Sultanpur tigress fathered by T12 went missing after she moved out of the park periphery in order to protect her cubs from invading males.

And today this promising young female joins the rest of her clan….may her soul rest in peace…RIP T37 Quaal Ji would never be the same without you.