Land of the Tiger (1997–…): Season 1, Episode 2 - Sacred Waters - full transcript
Dawn on the floodplain of the Brahmaputra
I'm in one of the finest
wildlife habitats in the world.
This is Kaziranga,
and the rich and productive grasslands
are home to elephants,
tigers, wild buffalo,
and of course the rhino.
None of these creatures would be here
were it not for the great rivers
of northern India.
The floodplains
of the Ganges and Brahmaputra
owe their natural fertility to the monsoon
that life giving force of water.
Ice cold water, straight from the glacier
Snow-fed rivers like this
are the basis of life itself,
and this river is very, very special.
Here at Devprayag,
two mountain torrents,
the Alaknanda and the Bagirathi,
merge to create our most sacred river,
the Ganges.
From Devprayag,
the Ganges flows more than 1000 km
to the Bay of Bengal.
But it has its origins
high up in the Himalayas.
August, the height of the monsoon.
Warm, moist air from the ocean
crashes against the icy barrier
of the mountains.
It's then that the fury of the floods begin
All along the Himalayas,
rivers erupt from the foothills,
like muddy champagne.
At peak flow,
the rivers carry nearly a billion gallons of water
to the sea every second.
Even elephants have difficulty
standing against the flood.
The rivers burst their banks,
and floodwaters spread far and wide.
Four hundred million people
live on the plains
of northern India and Bangladesh.
The floods kill hundreds every year...
but as the waters recede,
they leave behind their gift of precious silt
And in the few places
where people haven't settled,
the silt also nourishes
a fertile haven for wildlife.
Big animals like wild buffalo and rhino
cope better with the floodwater
than people do.
Tigers thrive in this waterworld.
On its journey from Devprayag
the Ganges is swollen by tributaries
like the Jamuna...
the river that flows by the Taj Mahal...
And close to an equally spectacular
living monument... Bharatpur,
one of the finest wetland sanctuaries
in the world.
I'm in Bharatpur,
to see the spectacle
of hundreds of thousands of birds
nesting and raising their young.
This remarkable sanctuary
is actually artificial.
It was created in the late nineteenth century
by the Maharajah of Bharatpur.
He flooded twenty square kilometres
of marshland to attract birds...
for shooting.
Today it's managed as a sanctuary,
famous both for its winter visitors
and for the birds that breed here
during the monsoon.
If I was a bird I would dive into Bharatpur,
to live and stay.
The waters of this wetland
are teeming with fish fry,
so the shallow marshy lakes
attract birds by the thousand.
All this depends on water.
Birds flock here
from all across northern India to nest.
But everything hangs on the monsoon.
Only if the rains are bountiful
is there enough food for them
to rear their young.
Throughout the monsoon,
waves of birds flock into Bharatpur
by the tens of thousand.
By the time the painted storks arrive,
the marsh is a clamorous cacophony
of birdlife...
all grappling for material
to build their nests.
Bharatpur's lakes are studded
with innumerable tiny islets...
all planted with thorny trees.
Even so, there's stiff competition
for safe nesting sites.
Two thousand pairs of painted storks
come here each year.
Mating for painted storks
is a delicate balancing act.
The eggs are handled with equal delicacy
They have to be turned
at regular intervals
The parents share the task
of sitting on them,
twenty four hours a day.
In Bharatpur,
you're enveloped in a world of birds
Everywhere you look,
birds are coupling,
eggs are being incubated,
chicks are hatching.
The parents regurgitate food
onto the floor of the nest.
So it's every chick for itself,
and the weakest go to the wall.
If they fall from the nest,
they won't live long.
Monitor lizards soon clean up
anything that drops.
Chick or egg...
it's all food to a hungry reptile.
Near-naked nestlings
need shelter from the searing heat.
Their parents are living sunshades.
When the sun goes down,
Bharatpur's most elusive residents
come out to hunt.
These fishing cats
are after the same quarry as the birds.
Their paws are armed with natural fish hooks,
and their night vision is superb.
They prey on all sorts of creatures,
but their speciality is fish.
What a fantastic sight!
I've never seen anything like this before.
On a riverbank not far from Bharatpur,
a strange creature lies listening and waiting.
Not an extra from Jurassic Park,
but a gharial,
one of the last survivors
of an ancient lineage of crocodiles.
Several weeks ago
this female buried her eggs in the sand.
Now these bizarre calls tell her
that they are about to hatch.
Hastily she digs down to release them
from their sandy prison.
These survivors
from the age of the dinosaurs
are among the largest of crocodiles.
Adults can grow to seven metres,
so these youngsters have a long way to go
They'll grow on a diet of fish,
those slim, toothy jaws
ideal for seizing their prey.
And in future, they may be catching it
not far from here.
Gharials were almost extinct,
but now they're being reared in captivity
and put back into former haunts
like the Chambal, a tributary of the Jamuna
They're devoted mothers.
They herd their vulnerable young together,
for safety.
And mothers don't just care
for their own hatchlings.
This is a creche.
Females take it in turns
to guard the nursery while the others fish
Rivers, lakes and marshes
draw birds of many kinds in their season
like these revered sarus cranes.
It's considered very bad luck
to harm a sarus crane.
These huge birds are symbols of fidelity
People say that if one of a pair is killed,
its mate will die of a broken heart.
Every year,
before the start of the nesting season,
the bonds that bind pairs together
are renewed,
with elaborate rituals
of calling and dancing.
Dung throwing seems an unlikely way
of appealing to a mate.
Soon after the end of the monsoon,
there's a new wave of visitors
to Bharatpur.
As winter takes its grip
on more northern climes,
waterfowl by the tens of thousand
flock to these marshes.
Many will have flown from Siberia
and the Arctic circle...
braving the high Himalayan passes
to reach this sanctuary.
Ducks, coots, waders, geese...
it's an endless list.
And the numbers are unimaginable.
Before shooting was stopped in 1964,
the Maharajah's record bag
was over 4000 birds in a single shoot.
Today there are no human hunters,
but an astounding 32 kinds of bird of prey
patrol Bharatpur.
Some live here all year round,
but many are winter visitors
taking advantage of the influx of waterfowl
Far away from all this commotion
nests a dense colony of openbill storks.
During the monsoon
they outnumber the people
of this West Bengal village of Jogyanagar
by almost three to one.
So crowded are the trees
that nests sometimes fall to the ground.
But what happens
to the plump victims of the crash?
Are they destined for the cooking pot?
The village headman
says the storks began nesting here
in the nineteenth century.
Indeed, many believe that if the storks
stopped coming to Jogyanagar,
their fields would lose their fertility.
So despite the noise and the mess,
the storks return
is welcomed each year...
and chicks like these are hand reared
until they're old enough to fly.
Children even collect snails
from the fields to feed the chicks.
Back in Bharatpur, later in the season,
the painted stork chicks are transformed
They're growing fast,
and their demand for food is insatiable
It's been calculated that a colony
of two thousand painted storks
needs an incredible 4 to 6 tons of food a day
for themselves and their nestlings.
The chicks won't fly the nest
until they're sixty or seventy days old
but long before that,
they start exercising the wings
that will carry them away.
All over northern India,
wings of many kinds are flapping.
These ibis will soon take to the sky.
The fish-rich waters of the floodplain
feed all sorts of creatures.
A clan of otters bring the year's
new recruits down to the water
For those used to seeing wild otters
in units of one,
this is an extraordinary sight.
Another fish eater... the cormorant.
To local fishermen,
these are 'water crows'...
but such vast flocks are testimony
to the incredible richness
of these sacred waters.
There are dozens
of different kinds of fish here.
They come in all shapes and sizes,
to suit every taste.
For the people of the floodplains,
fish are a vital source of food.
The techniques they use
are as ageless and innovative
as the fishing strategies of the animals
People and wildlife have been competing
for the fish in these waters
for thousands of years.
Bloated with fish,
the otters can relax on the river bank.
Our journey has brought us
to Varanasi, City of Light.
Pilgrims throng here to wash away their sins
in the sacred waters of the Ganges.
Many hope to end their days here,
or at least have their ashes immersed,
for Hindus believe
that anyone who dies at Varanasi
is freed from the cycle of death and rebirth
Even among the seething crowds
there's a vital place for wildlife.
Turtles are the river's cleaning service
They'll eat anything they can swallow,
vegetable or animal.
At Varanasi,
the murky waters of the river
are rich in the detritus of devotion.
From Varanasi
we journey east, to Assam...
to explore the banks
of the second of northern India's
great rivers, the Brahmaputra.
Here lies one of India's
best kept secrets, Kaziranga.
The jewel in Kaziranga's crown
is the Indian one-horned rhinoceros
but those horns are a magnet for poachers
These men are forest guards,
who are returning from a night patrol
of Kaziranga's wet floodplains.
Today, nobody has been killed.
But gun battles rage across these grasslands
with poachers far too often.
It's been a hard and bloody struggle,
with casualties on both sides.
But the extraordinary bravery of these men
has made Kaziranga
India's finest success story.
Eighty years ago
there were twelve rhinos here.
Poaching had decimated the wildlife
Today, there are twelve hundred rhinos
It's really fantastic
how close you can get
to a short-sighted rhino
on the back of an elephant.
After the monsoon floods
the grass grows thick, tall and succulent
Excellent food for the rhinos...
over half the world's population
of Indian rhinoceros
live in this one reserve
Kaziranga also supports
one of the last populations of wild buffalo
the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo
Rich grasslands like this are home
to one of our most endangered deers
the swamp deer... barasingha
The stag adorns himself for courtship.
He's already urinated in this wallow,
and now he's coating himself
in a pungent, glutinous mud.
We might not find this very appealing
but will she?
A touch of grass to decorate his antlers
and he's ready for the acid test.
That single thrust
is all there is to barasingha mating.
Courting in rhinos is a heavyweight affair
A willing female
often attracts several males,
so a suitor has to chase off his rivals.
Rhinos may look as if they're armour plated
but their skin's nowhere near
as tough as steel.
It could easily be damaged in a fight.
Couplings are often interrupted
by other males.
If a male isn't harassed,
he can stay up for an hour or more...
and his partner has to support
most of his two ton weight.
Even young rhinos are no lightweights.
When water hyacinth
was introduced from South America,
almost nothing would touch it.
But now, rhinos and buffaloes
thrive on it.
Birds follow feeding animals
to seize any fish or insects they disturb
With so many grazing animals,
there are inevitably tigers.
Kaziranga has the highest density
of these great cats anywhere in the world
Its five hundred square kilometres
sustain about seventy five tigers.
Tigers have none of the usual
feline shyness of water.
They love wading and swimming.
It's the best way of cooling down.
On a hot day,
there's no finer place for the family.
When it's time to go,
tigress and cubs leave the water warily.
With young to protect,
she wouldn't want a confrontation with these
But other tigers are less cautious.
A case of trying to bite off
rather more than you can chew.
Indian wild buffalo
have the largest horns of any living animal
Experienced tigers
do sometimes kill and eat them,
but this one's lack of experience is obvious
It's forced to retreat.
Buffaloes are formidable adversaries
They've been known to gore tigers to death
With so many gigantic animals around,
tigers have to be very careful.
I've also seen them
being chased by rhinos and elephants
Kaziranga's elephants
spend much of their time
hidden in forest
or tall thickets of elephant grass,
but most afternoons
they tramp to the water
to cool off and slake their thirst.
This herd is of females and youngsters
this extended family
is the core of elephant society.
Some of the females may be ready to mate
A huge mukhna, a tuskless male,
comes to try his luck.
If any are in season,
he'll pick up the scent with his trunk.
Kaziranga is a land of giants.
It's a refuge
for all of India's largest animals.
Nowhere else can you see elephant,
rhino and buffalo all together.
From Kaziranga we move downriver,
towards the Bay of Bengal.
The waters of the Ganges
and Brahmaputra unite.
Downstream lies the huge
and mysterious delta of the Sunderbans
It's a maze of tidal waterways
and forested islands of silt.
As it nears the sea
it becomes even wilder,
until finally it's a hidden,
almost impenetrable wilderness,
where the rhythm of the tide
dictates the pattern of life.
On its seaward edge,
it's dominated by mangroves.
Their roots rise from the silt
like the bones of some long dead monster
Anything that lives here has to cope
with the rise and fall of the tide
Mudskippers are fish...
but fish that can walk on land.
Water monitors are lizards,
but lizards that can swim.
Like miniature dinosaurs,
they battle over a carcass.
Water monitors can grow close to two metres
but an even bigger reptile
haunts the swamps.
Pythons too are equally
at home in the water
There are even monkeys
in this watery world
Climbers like macaques
exploit both land and water,
finding food in the mud
and food in the trees. As do chital.
Deer and monkey keep close company,
partners in the day-long lookout
for predators.
For here all are at risk.
Chital are the tiger's favourite quarry
But it also takes other prey.
It eats fish, crabs, snakes...
even big pythons.
People from the northern margins of the delta
exploit its creeks in a remarkable way.
They go fishing with otters.
The otters are tethered to the boats
by long cords.
As the men pole across the waterways,
the otters flush the fish out of the weed
and drive them into nets
suspended from the boats.
The otters are bred in captivity,
and they spend their lives
fishing for their human masters.
When they're six months old
the young are allowed to swim free,
to learn how to fish
from their tethered mothers.
For the fishermen,
the benefits are clear.
But do the otters get anything
for their pains?
When the catch is landed,
they're given the scraps.
This is surely one of the most
extraordinary ways to exploit an animal
At night,
the Sunderbans is a forest of fear.
This is the tiger's fortress
at the edge of the sea.
There are more tigers
in this stretch of mangroves
than anywhere else in the world
Traditionally, people entered
the mangroves at night to fish,
and to collect honey and firewood.
This brought them
into close contact with tigers.
The safest place
should have been on the water,
but tigers have always been expert swimmers
and occasionally attacked men on boats.
The delta abounds with terrifying tales
of man-eating tigers.
From that fear
has come intense tiger worship.
The tiger has become a god.
Amazingly, instead of persecuting the tiger
the people of the Sunderbans
have transformed it
into an object of worship.
Even though these women
lost their husbands to tigers,
they are still devotees of the tiger god
Fortunately,
man-eating is now a thing of the past
Today there's a greater understanding
of the problem between man and tiger
and the mangroves are managed
to minimise conflict.
The heart of the forest
is preserved as a sanctuary
and people no longer intrude
on the tiger's domain.
Talking to these women,
I am amazed
by their understanding and tolerance
This is the only way
we can create a better balance
between the needs of people
and the tigers.
For some, the Sunderbans may seem
a cruel and dangerous place,
but for many it is a place
where the future of more than 500 tigers
could be secure.
It is the true land of the tiger,
a magical wilderness, a place of hope
I'm in one of the finest
wildlife habitats in the world.
This is Kaziranga,
and the rich and productive grasslands
are home to elephants,
tigers, wild buffalo,
and of course the rhino.
None of these creatures would be here
were it not for the great rivers
of northern India.
The floodplains
of the Ganges and Brahmaputra
owe their natural fertility to the monsoon
that life giving force of water.
Ice cold water, straight from the glacier
Snow-fed rivers like this
are the basis of life itself,
and this river is very, very special.
Here at Devprayag,
two mountain torrents,
the Alaknanda and the Bagirathi,
merge to create our most sacred river,
the Ganges.
From Devprayag,
the Ganges flows more than 1000 km
to the Bay of Bengal.
But it has its origins
high up in the Himalayas.
August, the height of the monsoon.
Warm, moist air from the ocean
crashes against the icy barrier
of the mountains.
It's then that the fury of the floods begin
All along the Himalayas,
rivers erupt from the foothills,
like muddy champagne.
At peak flow,
the rivers carry nearly a billion gallons of water
to the sea every second.
Even elephants have difficulty
standing against the flood.
The rivers burst their banks,
and floodwaters spread far and wide.
Four hundred million people
live on the plains
of northern India and Bangladesh.
The floods kill hundreds every year...
but as the waters recede,
they leave behind their gift of precious silt
And in the few places
where people haven't settled,
the silt also nourishes
a fertile haven for wildlife.
Big animals like wild buffalo and rhino
cope better with the floodwater
than people do.
Tigers thrive in this waterworld.
On its journey from Devprayag
the Ganges is swollen by tributaries
like the Jamuna...
the river that flows by the Taj Mahal...
And close to an equally spectacular
living monument... Bharatpur,
one of the finest wetland sanctuaries
in the world.
I'm in Bharatpur,
to see the spectacle
of hundreds of thousands of birds
nesting and raising their young.
This remarkable sanctuary
is actually artificial.
It was created in the late nineteenth century
by the Maharajah of Bharatpur.
He flooded twenty square kilometres
of marshland to attract birds...
for shooting.
Today it's managed as a sanctuary,
famous both for its winter visitors
and for the birds that breed here
during the monsoon.
If I was a bird I would dive into Bharatpur,
to live and stay.
The waters of this wetland
are teeming with fish fry,
so the shallow marshy lakes
attract birds by the thousand.
All this depends on water.
Birds flock here
from all across northern India to nest.
But everything hangs on the monsoon.
Only if the rains are bountiful
is there enough food for them
to rear their young.
Throughout the monsoon,
waves of birds flock into Bharatpur
by the tens of thousand.
By the time the painted storks arrive,
the marsh is a clamorous cacophony
of birdlife...
all grappling for material
to build their nests.
Bharatpur's lakes are studded
with innumerable tiny islets...
all planted with thorny trees.
Even so, there's stiff competition
for safe nesting sites.
Two thousand pairs of painted storks
come here each year.
Mating for painted storks
is a delicate balancing act.
The eggs are handled with equal delicacy
They have to be turned
at regular intervals
The parents share the task
of sitting on them,
twenty four hours a day.
In Bharatpur,
you're enveloped in a world of birds
Everywhere you look,
birds are coupling,
eggs are being incubated,
chicks are hatching.
The parents regurgitate food
onto the floor of the nest.
So it's every chick for itself,
and the weakest go to the wall.
If they fall from the nest,
they won't live long.
Monitor lizards soon clean up
anything that drops.
Chick or egg...
it's all food to a hungry reptile.
Near-naked nestlings
need shelter from the searing heat.
Their parents are living sunshades.
When the sun goes down,
Bharatpur's most elusive residents
come out to hunt.
These fishing cats
are after the same quarry as the birds.
Their paws are armed with natural fish hooks,
and their night vision is superb.
They prey on all sorts of creatures,
but their speciality is fish.
What a fantastic sight!
I've never seen anything like this before.
On a riverbank not far from Bharatpur,
a strange creature lies listening and waiting.
Not an extra from Jurassic Park,
but a gharial,
one of the last survivors
of an ancient lineage of crocodiles.
Several weeks ago
this female buried her eggs in the sand.
Now these bizarre calls tell her
that they are about to hatch.
Hastily she digs down to release them
from their sandy prison.
These survivors
from the age of the dinosaurs
are among the largest of crocodiles.
Adults can grow to seven metres,
so these youngsters have a long way to go
They'll grow on a diet of fish,
those slim, toothy jaws
ideal for seizing their prey.
And in future, they may be catching it
not far from here.
Gharials were almost extinct,
but now they're being reared in captivity
and put back into former haunts
like the Chambal, a tributary of the Jamuna
They're devoted mothers.
They herd their vulnerable young together,
for safety.
And mothers don't just care
for their own hatchlings.
This is a creche.
Females take it in turns
to guard the nursery while the others fish
Rivers, lakes and marshes
draw birds of many kinds in their season
like these revered sarus cranes.
It's considered very bad luck
to harm a sarus crane.
These huge birds are symbols of fidelity
People say that if one of a pair is killed,
its mate will die of a broken heart.
Every year,
before the start of the nesting season,
the bonds that bind pairs together
are renewed,
with elaborate rituals
of calling and dancing.
Dung throwing seems an unlikely way
of appealing to a mate.
Soon after the end of the monsoon,
there's a new wave of visitors
to Bharatpur.
As winter takes its grip
on more northern climes,
waterfowl by the tens of thousand
flock to these marshes.
Many will have flown from Siberia
and the Arctic circle...
braving the high Himalayan passes
to reach this sanctuary.
Ducks, coots, waders, geese...
it's an endless list.
And the numbers are unimaginable.
Before shooting was stopped in 1964,
the Maharajah's record bag
was over 4000 birds in a single shoot.
Today there are no human hunters,
but an astounding 32 kinds of bird of prey
patrol Bharatpur.
Some live here all year round,
but many are winter visitors
taking advantage of the influx of waterfowl
Far away from all this commotion
nests a dense colony of openbill storks.
During the monsoon
they outnumber the people
of this West Bengal village of Jogyanagar
by almost three to one.
So crowded are the trees
that nests sometimes fall to the ground.
But what happens
to the plump victims of the crash?
Are they destined for the cooking pot?
The village headman
says the storks began nesting here
in the nineteenth century.
Indeed, many believe that if the storks
stopped coming to Jogyanagar,
their fields would lose their fertility.
So despite the noise and the mess,
the storks return
is welcomed each year...
and chicks like these are hand reared
until they're old enough to fly.
Children even collect snails
from the fields to feed the chicks.
Back in Bharatpur, later in the season,
the painted stork chicks are transformed
They're growing fast,
and their demand for food is insatiable
It's been calculated that a colony
of two thousand painted storks
needs an incredible 4 to 6 tons of food a day
for themselves and their nestlings.
The chicks won't fly the nest
until they're sixty or seventy days old
but long before that,
they start exercising the wings
that will carry them away.
All over northern India,
wings of many kinds are flapping.
These ibis will soon take to the sky.
The fish-rich waters of the floodplain
feed all sorts of creatures.
A clan of otters bring the year's
new recruits down to the water
For those used to seeing wild otters
in units of one,
this is an extraordinary sight.
Another fish eater... the cormorant.
To local fishermen,
these are 'water crows'...
but such vast flocks are testimony
to the incredible richness
of these sacred waters.
There are dozens
of different kinds of fish here.
They come in all shapes and sizes,
to suit every taste.
For the people of the floodplains,
fish are a vital source of food.
The techniques they use
are as ageless and innovative
as the fishing strategies of the animals
People and wildlife have been competing
for the fish in these waters
for thousands of years.
Bloated with fish,
the otters can relax on the river bank.
Our journey has brought us
to Varanasi, City of Light.
Pilgrims throng here to wash away their sins
in the sacred waters of the Ganges.
Many hope to end their days here,
or at least have their ashes immersed,
for Hindus believe
that anyone who dies at Varanasi
is freed from the cycle of death and rebirth
Even among the seething crowds
there's a vital place for wildlife.
Turtles are the river's cleaning service
They'll eat anything they can swallow,
vegetable or animal.
At Varanasi,
the murky waters of the river
are rich in the detritus of devotion.
From Varanasi
we journey east, to Assam...
to explore the banks
of the second of northern India's
great rivers, the Brahmaputra.
Here lies one of India's
best kept secrets, Kaziranga.
The jewel in Kaziranga's crown
is the Indian one-horned rhinoceros
but those horns are a magnet for poachers
These men are forest guards,
who are returning from a night patrol
of Kaziranga's wet floodplains.
Today, nobody has been killed.
But gun battles rage across these grasslands
with poachers far too often.
It's been a hard and bloody struggle,
with casualties on both sides.
But the extraordinary bravery of these men
has made Kaziranga
India's finest success story.
Eighty years ago
there were twelve rhinos here.
Poaching had decimated the wildlife
Today, there are twelve hundred rhinos
It's really fantastic
how close you can get
to a short-sighted rhino
on the back of an elephant.
After the monsoon floods
the grass grows thick, tall and succulent
Excellent food for the rhinos...
over half the world's population
of Indian rhinoceros
live in this one reserve
Kaziranga also supports
one of the last populations of wild buffalo
the ancestor of the domestic water buffalo
Rich grasslands like this are home
to one of our most endangered deers
the swamp deer... barasingha
The stag adorns himself for courtship.
He's already urinated in this wallow,
and now he's coating himself
in a pungent, glutinous mud.
We might not find this very appealing
but will she?
A touch of grass to decorate his antlers
and he's ready for the acid test.
That single thrust
is all there is to barasingha mating.
Courting in rhinos is a heavyweight affair
A willing female
often attracts several males,
so a suitor has to chase off his rivals.
Rhinos may look as if they're armour plated
but their skin's nowhere near
as tough as steel.
It could easily be damaged in a fight.
Couplings are often interrupted
by other males.
If a male isn't harassed,
he can stay up for an hour or more...
and his partner has to support
most of his two ton weight.
Even young rhinos are no lightweights.
When water hyacinth
was introduced from South America,
almost nothing would touch it.
But now, rhinos and buffaloes
thrive on it.
Birds follow feeding animals
to seize any fish or insects they disturb
With so many grazing animals,
there are inevitably tigers.
Kaziranga has the highest density
of these great cats anywhere in the world
Its five hundred square kilometres
sustain about seventy five tigers.
Tigers have none of the usual
feline shyness of water.
They love wading and swimming.
It's the best way of cooling down.
On a hot day,
there's no finer place for the family.
When it's time to go,
tigress and cubs leave the water warily.
With young to protect,
she wouldn't want a confrontation with these
But other tigers are less cautious.
A case of trying to bite off
rather more than you can chew.
Indian wild buffalo
have the largest horns of any living animal
Experienced tigers
do sometimes kill and eat them,
but this one's lack of experience is obvious
It's forced to retreat.
Buffaloes are formidable adversaries
They've been known to gore tigers to death
With so many gigantic animals around,
tigers have to be very careful.
I've also seen them
being chased by rhinos and elephants
Kaziranga's elephants
spend much of their time
hidden in forest
or tall thickets of elephant grass,
but most afternoons
they tramp to the water
to cool off and slake their thirst.
This herd is of females and youngsters
this extended family
is the core of elephant society.
Some of the females may be ready to mate
A huge mukhna, a tuskless male,
comes to try his luck.
If any are in season,
he'll pick up the scent with his trunk.
Kaziranga is a land of giants.
It's a refuge
for all of India's largest animals.
Nowhere else can you see elephant,
rhino and buffalo all together.
From Kaziranga we move downriver,
towards the Bay of Bengal.
The waters of the Ganges
and Brahmaputra unite.
Downstream lies the huge
and mysterious delta of the Sunderbans
It's a maze of tidal waterways
and forested islands of silt.
As it nears the sea
it becomes even wilder,
until finally it's a hidden,
almost impenetrable wilderness,
where the rhythm of the tide
dictates the pattern of life.
On its seaward edge,
it's dominated by mangroves.
Their roots rise from the silt
like the bones of some long dead monster
Anything that lives here has to cope
with the rise and fall of the tide
Mudskippers are fish...
but fish that can walk on land.
Water monitors are lizards,
but lizards that can swim.
Like miniature dinosaurs,
they battle over a carcass.
Water monitors can grow close to two metres
but an even bigger reptile
haunts the swamps.
Pythons too are equally
at home in the water
There are even monkeys
in this watery world
Climbers like macaques
exploit both land and water,
finding food in the mud
and food in the trees. As do chital.
Deer and monkey keep close company,
partners in the day-long lookout
for predators.
For here all are at risk.
Chital are the tiger's favourite quarry
But it also takes other prey.
It eats fish, crabs, snakes...
even big pythons.
People from the northern margins of the delta
exploit its creeks in a remarkable way.
They go fishing with otters.
The otters are tethered to the boats
by long cords.
As the men pole across the waterways,
the otters flush the fish out of the weed
and drive them into nets
suspended from the boats.
The otters are bred in captivity,
and they spend their lives
fishing for their human masters.
When they're six months old
the young are allowed to swim free,
to learn how to fish
from their tethered mothers.
For the fishermen,
the benefits are clear.
But do the otters get anything
for their pains?
When the catch is landed,
they're given the scraps.
This is surely one of the most
extraordinary ways to exploit an animal
At night,
the Sunderbans is a forest of fear.
This is the tiger's fortress
at the edge of the sea.
There are more tigers
in this stretch of mangroves
than anywhere else in the world
Traditionally, people entered
the mangroves at night to fish,
and to collect honey and firewood.
This brought them
into close contact with tigers.
The safest place
should have been on the water,
but tigers have always been expert swimmers
and occasionally attacked men on boats.
The delta abounds with terrifying tales
of man-eating tigers.
From that fear
has come intense tiger worship.
The tiger has become a god.
Amazingly, instead of persecuting the tiger
the people of the Sunderbans
have transformed it
into an object of worship.
Even though these women
lost their husbands to tigers,
they are still devotees of the tiger god
Fortunately,
man-eating is now a thing of the past
Today there's a greater understanding
of the problem between man and tiger
and the mangroves are managed
to minimise conflict.
The heart of the forest
is preserved as a sanctuary
and people no longer intrude
on the tiger's domain.
Talking to these women,
I am amazed
by their understanding and tolerance
This is the only way
we can create a better balance
between the needs of people
and the tigers.
For some, the Sunderbans may seem
a cruel and dangerous place,
but for many it is a place
where the future of more than 500 tigers
could be secure.
It is the true land of the tiger,
a magical wilderness, a place of hope