On the tiger’s trail: Workshop by Pooja Choksi
Even though the students in the villages of Dahoda and Kolitmara live around the Pench Tiger Reserve, very few of them have actually seen a tiger or know about its behaviour.
It is always advisable to know one’s neighbour well, especially if it a 200 kilo tiger. This week our program manager, Pooja Choksi, gave the students a peek into the world of tigers- where tigers live, the way they behave, their anatomy, their habits and their subspecies. At each activity the students did, they were amazed by the facts they found out about their national animal.
Conducting the workshop at Dahoda Residential School. (Image: Jash Koardia)
Through a gamut of activities the students learnt about their fierce neighbor and the only reaction was that of surprise on learning about the different quirks of tigers.
Students smelling the ‘urine’ of the tiger to determine who it is in a game to understand the tiger’s territorial behaviour.
Our volunteer for the week, Jash Koradia, identifying with the students countries in which the tiger roams in the wild.
Girls at Kolitmara Residential School measuring our famous and much loved tigress, Colarwalli, to learn just how big the Bengal tigers can get!
The students were literally on the tiger’s trail in the workshop! (Image: Jash Koardia)
Mr. Suraj Chopra from the Kolitmara Forest Department graciously volunteered to show them a little something of the work forest guards have to do and the students got a chance to get their hands on pug casts.
Mr. Chopra helping the students identify pugcasts of tigers and leopards. It’s always good to know who’s around the corner when you live in a forest of tigers!
From a 100,000 tigers a century ago to just a mere 3200 around the world today, this workshop addressed the troubles tigers now face to simply exist. The tiger and its home which is under constant threat, has now become the cornerstone of our survival.
Our program manager, Pooja, explaining the importance of the tiger. The tiger’s home, the forest, is of utmost importance to our food and water security and its conservation is exigent. (Image: Jash Koardia).
(If students can’t reach the E-Base, not a problem, we can reach out to them. Workshops on the Maharashtra side of the Pench Tiger Reserve began in July 2014. With a modified E-Base program,we take the workshops, projects and even a library to the doorstep of these students in Maharashtra. With an audience of close to 180 students this year, we are sure to make a lasting impact and continue growing as the years pass. The enthusiasm and curiousity displayed by the students in Maharashtra make every effort we take to travel for hours to reach the schools in Pench, Maharashtra worth it.
Keep up with our blog as we continue to travel to different ends of the forest of Pench to reach out to a wider audience to aggrandize our impact, thereby aggrandizing the effort to save the tiger and its home)
