She ended up with very important and alarming results such as:

- Tiger pugmarks are seen almost every morning on the nulla, proof that at least one tiger inhabits the area and uses this nulla

- Tigers and Elephants regularly use the nulla and game tracks in the vicinity of Ringora village

- The speed limit of 40 kilometers is seldom adhered to and the highway takes a heavy toll on wildlife. Mongoose, porcupine, primates, cheetal or spotted deer and numerous reptiles are commonly run down. In the past 3 leopards have died and a tiger was severely injured by such vehicular accidents.

Laurie’s work was one of the first ever meticulous assessment of the wildlife corridor between Ramnagar and Dhikuli and brought our alarming facts regarding the ever increasing traffic on NH 121 and impacts of mindless tourism.

Since her childhood Laurie had a passion for wildlife and especially big carnivorous fauna like wolves and tigers. It is very important to her to act for their conservation and protection. She graduated in sciences with a specialty on Biology Ecology and now, she is following a two year course in Management and Protection of the Nature and the Environment (High National Diploma) at the University les Barres (France).

For her Corbett was very motivating because it has a extraordinarily rich wildlife and different emblematic species to preserve. She also interacted with foresters and naturalists to help her in her research, which was indeed very interesting. Moreover during this three months period, she got the opportunity in term of human relationship to learn, meet people and discover a new culture. It was a fascinating experience to her, to be close to tigers, to feel their presence, to follow their pugmarks… it really was a dream. Laurie is now committed to act for the protection of endangered species especially carnivorous and to follow a course on mammals’ behavior, also called ethology.

While he was here, Jacob stayed at Ringora’s homestay. It was an ideal place to work since there is a colony of White-rumped vultures in three trees, located at about 50m from the homestay. Every morning, Jacob did an early monitoring of the vultures sitting in the trees and nests, recording the number of juveniles and adults present. He also recorded the take-off times, the landing times and every time he would see a vulture flying in the sky. He also went to Tumeria Khatta inhabited by Van Gujjars tribes who are traditionally herdsmen, where another colony of vulture has been identified. He regularly monitored the feeding site of Hathi Dagar, where carcasses are regularly dumped and vultures come to feed.

Jacob is from Montreal (Canada) but lives nowadays in the south of France. He has been passionate by raptors and wolves since he was five and always wanted to act for their protection. He did a five weeks internship in a falconry park, in France, which made him work closely with birds of prey. Jacob also loves mountains, trekking and wildlife. He did graduation in sciences and is currently following a two years course (a High National Diploma) in “Management and Protection of Nature” at the University Legta des Barres (France).

Jacob ended up with very good data regarding vulture population of the area but also good ideas regarding their conservation, like for example opening a vulture restaurant, where carcasses would be left for the vultures.His internship in India was an exceptional experience and he will never forget it. This trip was also a chance for him to work concretely with birds of prey, and it also gave him an idea on his future job.  After this course he would like to continue his studies in mountains areas, more precisely to work for the conservation of raptors and/or wolves in the French Alps.

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About Tiger in Red Wether

Asia in the twenty-first century as China’s shadow grows, Asia poised on the edge of change – and a woman exploring its threatened jungles for the animal they call the soul of Asia. Is this the tiger’s last moment before extinction or can it be saved? Who is trying to save it, and how? Are there any tigers left, and if so, where? After ending a long relationship, award-winning poet Ruth Padel finds herself inexplicably drawn to the great animal solitary; potent, myth-laden, and now gravely endangered. She comes across an advert for a cheap trip to India and visits a tiger reserve. So begins a remarkable journey, and an obsession. With her granny’s opera glasses and a pair of cheap Tunisian trainers, asking how and where do tigers live and what are their chances, she plunges into tiger myths, tiger dreams, and leech-infested jungles.

Among the cobras, bears and golden langurs living tangled lives in the tiger’s shadow from Nepal to Siberia, Karnataka to Indonesia, and with poems in her pocket to keep her going, she meets tigers, leopards, bee-keepers, forest guards, espionage teams pitted against ruthless poachers. She kayaks through rapids, camps on rainforested mountains, but above all she travels with and questions “defenders of the wild”: the scientists and conservationists struggling to protect the forest and its denizens from armed poachers, and from the mining, logging and development mafias that threaten the world’s last remaining wilderness.

What does wild mean? Why does it matter that wilderness should continue, that wild tigers still exist, when there are thousands of tigers in zoos and always will be? How, faced with wildlife crime, poaching and the loss of forests, do you deal with despair? What about the symbols and meanings we load the tiger with, which lead us both to revere and destroy it?

There are animal books, there are travel books, there are getting over someone books, but you don’t usually find them all together. This one is about loss and survival, poetry and science; about what you find when you enter the forest. Secret remote Bhutan, the taiga of Far East Russia, vulnerable to the mafia and changing forest law; the jungles of Laos, full of landmines and rapidly being emptied by the wildlife trade; snowy forests of north-east China; equatorial Sumatran rainforest with its illegal chainsaws, landslides, and tiger shamans.

This is a wise, captivating and above all a timely study in natural history, a beautiful piece of travel literature driven by deep reverence for nature, wildlife and science, and a meticulously focussed snapshot of Asia on the edge of irreversible environmental change. It opens your eyes to wider issues of bio-diversity in all their urgency and humanity, to knife-edge moral questions about a balance between poverty and conservation.

Finally, Tigers in Red Weather is an exploration of love – a quest for generous disenchantment, for falling out of love while honouring the past. It is an inner as well as an outer journey.

To know more about Ruth and her work please log on to www.ruthpadel.com