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Lakshmi, the tigress, lay close to death with eight wounds on her. You could see that one was deep and narrow, like a knife thrust. She dragged herself into the undergrowth. Bir Singh, chief mahout of the elephant patrol in Kanha Park, shook his head and let her go. `He never,' said David Attenborough, `saw her again.'
She must have been defending her cubs against the male tiger that had already killed her mate. It is in the interests of a top cat to annihilate all blood lines but his own.
This tiger seemed to have bitten the head off a very young cub. Bir Singh picked up the little face, no bigger than a cat's, and put it sadly on a large leaf. Lakshmi's mate looked like a cat in a road accident, his face stiffened with blood and his body slackened in death. Frankly, I'd like to have seen the other guy.
Tiger - The Wildlife Special (BBC1) was shot over three years from the back of the elephant patrol, which protects tigers from poachers but otherwise leaves them alone. This was the tiger unadorned, if you can call the tiger unadorned. Its black and gold...