Land of the Tiger (1997–…): Season 1, Episode 4 - Desert Kingdom - full transcript
This is the Great Indian desert,
the Thar desert
And it's cold this morning
But in a few months
the sun will burn the ground
and temperatures will soar to
above 50 degree centigrade
This huge stretch of land
sweeps across the States
of Rajasthan and Gujarat,
and west into Pakistan
It may not rain for years,
but these sand dunes
and the dry scrublands
are home to a rich variety of wildlife.
Demoiselle Cranes by the thousand.
But what are they doing here?
The answer lies just across the dunes,
in the little village of Kheechan
This may be a desert,
but it's a desert in which
the lives of animals and people
are intimately entwined.
These harsh surroundings
forge strange alliances.
This is what the birds
have been waiting for.
Throughout the winter,
the people of Kheechan
put out grain for the cranes.
enormous amounts every day.
This extraordinary relationship
started hundreds of years ago.
In the beginning,
it must have been
a handful of demoiselle cranes
being fed by the village
Today, thousands are welcomed and fed.
But where do they all come from?
They've travelled from their
breeding grounds in Central Asia,
thousands of kilometres over the sandy
wastes of the Rajasthan desert
to this tiny village of Kheechan
In every village and waterhole
across the desert,
flocks of cranes are welcomed.
They're symbols of great fortune
and good luck.
For six months each year,
birds and people share their lives.
In this desert,
you never know what you'll find.
There are more people here
than in any other desertˇ
a hundred times the density in the Sahara
And where you find people,
you always find animals.
This is the famous fair at Pushkar.
It's been held for centuries.
People may have walked
for weeks to get here.
It's a big social event,
but they're mainly here
to buy and sell camels.
Teams of hairdressers
move through the fair.
Every camel is clipped and trimmed
And they sport the latest in bridlewear
to ensure that they look their best
This has always been a crowded desert.
But today, human populations
are increasing dramatically.
They're making new
and unsustainable demands
on its fragile resources
With such pressures,
is there any room for wildlife?
Animals that were once widespread
are now found only in the dry grasslands
at the desert's edge.
These are blackbuckˇ
most elegant of India's antelope.
This is a sacred animal,
and even a glimpse of it
is considered auspicious.
The chronicles of the Mughals
tell of herds of tens of thousands.
Emperors and maharajahs hunted them
with trained cheetahs.
Today, the numbers are a shadow
of what they once were
Only mature males are black.
Their coat is at its darkest
at the time of the rut
Each male sets up a tiny territory,
just a few metres across.
He doesn't chase females,
but waits for them to come to him.
And he has a most unusual way
of attracting them
He produces a large pile of dung.
This exotic cocktail of odours
should prove an irresistible aphrodisiac
While he waits,
small birds like larks
are drawn to the dungpiles
by the insects they attract.
They, in turn, are a magnet
for hunters... like this harrier
Jackals don't seem to worry the blackbuck
The males stay tied
to their territories.
They have their minds on other things
But the appearance of another hunter
elicits a very different reaction
The wolf
This is a real threat.
All thoughts of sex are abandoned
as the bucks flee
As soon as the danger passes,
the bucks return.
On their way back to their dungpiles,
they trespass on others' territories.
Disputes break out all along the borders
Some go no further
than strutting and posturing.
But if females are about,
this can become a fight
With such potentially lethal weapons,
this jousting and sparring
follows well-established rules
Serious injuries are rare...
but it has been known for horns
to become fatally entwined.
The bucks remain locked together,
even in death.
Whatever the outcome,
it's the female that decides
where to bestow her favours
She can wander freely
from one territory to another.
Only if a buck looks good,
and smells good,
will she choose to stay.
In a split second, it's all over.
Blackbuck thrive in arid grasslands,
but they do need water.
Yet back in the dunes,
there's an animal that survives
even the terrible dryness of the desert
It's the chinkara, the Indian gazelle.
Chinkara can go
without drinking completely.
They get all the moisture they need
from the morning dew,
and the leaves of the shrubs they eat.
Strangely, animals congregate
in greatest numbers
near the homes of a desert people,
the Bishnoi.
Today the Bishnoi
are the true guardians of the desert.
They're strict vegetarians;
their culture forbids
the killing of any living thing
Animals of all kinds
are made welcome in their fields,
and they go to incredible lengths
to prevent anyone harming them.
I'm sitting in a desert
dwelling of the Bishnois.
A few weeks ago,
a young man of this dwelling
lost his life
as he chased after armed poachers.
He took a bullet,
and was shot dead
but the life of a chinkara was saved
We may talk about making sacrifices
for conservation,
but where else would someone
give their life for an animal?
No wonder great tracts of land
around Bishnoi dwellings
have become a haven
for desert wildlife.
Away from these villages,
the desert seems empty.
But as night falls,
it's quite another story.
As the sand gives up
the heat of the day,
its surface seems to boil.
Beetles that have spent the day
hiding from the burning sun
pour out in the cool
of the desert night.
There are hunters here, too,
like the saw scale viper...
but the armour-plated beetles
have nothing to fear from it.
It's after warmer, softer prey...
like gerbils
This is what the beetles are after.
With so many people and animals
moving around the desert,
there's enough dung to feed
an army of beetles.
Some of the dung they eat,
and some they lay eggs in.
Rolling dung is hard work,
but it doesn't pay to take a breather.
At night,
you have to watch where you step.
The dunes are crawling with scorpions.
Towards dawn,
the creatures of the night
vanish into the sand.
The desert city of Jodhpur...
dominated by the massive Mehrangarah fort
Once it housed the armies
of the Maharajah.
Now it has other residents.
A new army patrols the ramparts.
From their high vantage point,
the vultures look out over a city
bustling with life
The vultures get more than living
space from the people of Jodhpur.
The streets of the city
are full of working animals...
horses and camels, elephants and oxen
Cattle are sacred.
Few would eat the meat of a cowˇ
or any of the other animals.
So what happens when they die?
Each day, the dead are taken
to the edge of the city.
As the sun warms the rooftops,
the vultures launch themselves
into the rising thermals.
Few people will even touch a dead animal
Disposing of the corpse is the task of
one small group of people, the Chamars,
with a little help from the vultures
The skin will sell for a few rupees,
or the man may use it himself
as a drumskin.
The Chamar are also ritual drummers.
Either way,
in removing the cow's skin,
he has literally opened up
an opportunity for the vultures.
As he leaves,
they tumble from the sky.
Without people and their livestock,
the desert couldn't feed anything
like this number of vultures.
And people benefit, too.
Vultures are the nation's
cleaning service.
Without them,
our life would be impossible.
In just twenty minutes,
the carcass is stripped to the bone.
Heavy with meat,
they mustn't leave it too late
to fly back to the fort.
When the sun goes down,
the rising hot air currents will die...
and they could be stranded.
All across the desert,
jackals welcome the coming of the night
And far away,
another creature appears.
The caracal.
It waits until the last gleam
of light has faded
before venturing from its lair.
This shy and beautiful cat
was once widespread,
but now it's rarely seen.
It's a hunter of the night,
but it doesn't pass up
an opportunity to scavenge
By March,
the desert pools are drying up.
The cranes will soon be flying north,
leaving the dwindling waterholes
to others.
There's been no rain for months.
Everything is drawn
to the few remaining pools...
black winged stiltsˇ
Red wattled lapwingsˇ
Spot-billed ducksˇ
and the vultures.
Even the hardy chinkara take advantage
of this last chance of a drink.
They mingle with blackbuck.
Domestic animals like buffalo
rub shoulders with wild...
These are nilgai... blue bull...
largest of India's antelope
Desert people won't kill them,
even though
they can devastate their crops
Everything shares these waterholes.
For animals wild and domestic,
it's water to drink.
It's drinking water for people, too,ˇ
and the only place to wash clothes,
pots and pans... and themselves.
Most fish would suffocate in this pool,
but these have the ability to breathe
the air when the water loses its oxygen.
As so often in this desert,
people provide
another unexpected bonus for wildlife
Soft-shelled turtles suddenly appear,
to help with the washing up
The most unlikely creatures are sacred.
The Hindu god Vishnu
once took the form of a turtle.
As the waterholes shrink,
frogs become ever more concentrated.
Easy pickings,
you might think, for egrets.
But the frogs have a spectacular trick.
They race to the centre of the pool,
where the water is too deep
for the egrets to wade.
So, to counter the frogs' ingenuity,
the egrets try a new strategy.
But they don't give up.
As they skim across the surface,
the egrets trail their feet in the water
Perhaps that will panic the frogs
into the open.
A pied kingfisher takes advantage
of the fish in the shrinking pool.
It has a nest in the bank.
The water and the fish
will soon be gone,
but for now, the pickings are easy
In a couple of weeks,
the chicks should fly the nest.
Under cover of darkness,
other hunters will stalk the pool.
The kingfisher chicks
should be safe enough in their burrow.
But all is not well
Relentless heat
has sucked the moisture from the sand.
The chick's trapped,
but its nightmare is only just beginning
A prowling ratel has been attracted
by the chicks struggles
A baby kingfisher would go down well,
if it can shake it loose
The chick is out of reach.
But the ratel hasn't given up
extraordinary?
This is truly remarkable.
Very few animals use tools
in such a calculated way.
But the log isn't quite high enough
for the ratel to reach the chick
Perhaps another log will work better.
The pond is almost dry.
Most of its fish will perish...
but not this one
These climbing perch
can survive out of water
for more than twenty four hours.
As well as gills,
they have air breathing organs
very like lungs.
They lever themselves across the mud
with spikes on their bony gill covers.
Many will die.
If they are still in the open at daybreak,
they will be easy pickings for predators
But a few will find
a more permanent pond.
Very few pools
survive the searing heat of summer.
The swimming pool
has become a cricket pitch
Though most of the desert
is full of people,
there's one place where you'd think
nothing could survive...
the sun-baked salt flats
of the Rann of Kutch.
Yet incredibly,
this is the last refuge
of the Indian wild ass...
surely one of the toughest animals
in the world
It hasn't rained for seven months.
There's not a drop of water here...
yet the ass can survive
on the scant moisture they glean
from the leaves of succulent plants
Even for the ass,
this is a testing time.
The heat saps the energy
from their bodies.
The herd is waiting...
waiting for relief
At the edge of the desert,
the people have been waiting too.
Now the gathering clouds tell them
that their long wait is over.
The monsoon has arrived.
When it rains in the desert,
it really rains.
This is what the ass
have been waiting for.
Their world has been transformed
But the water and the greenery
won't last long.
They must pack the whole
of their breeding cycle
into a few short weeks
The mares give birth to foals
conceived nearly a year ago.
And almost at once,
they're ready to mate again
Stallions battle for dominance
There's no time
for ritual and posturing.
The matter has to be settled fast,
and the result made to stick
Fights between stallions
can be bloody,
but for the victors,
winning the females
can be just as bruising.
The stallion has been given
the run around,
but eventually the mare
allows him to mount
In eleven months time,
there'll be a new foal to take advantage
of the monsoon's transient flush of green
Every foal is precious.
Less than two thousand wild ass remain
And even this place is under pressure.
Industry hasn't left the ass alone.
Thirty percent of our salt
comes from the Rann of Kutch.
But the desert
has one final surprise to spring.
It bloomsˇ
pink... with flamingos.
Thousands of flamingos flock
to the Rann of Kutch every year.
A few weeks ago,
this was a lifeless expanse
of cracked and sunscorched mud.
Now, its like a shallow sea
And it really is a sea...
for the water isn't fresh; it's salty
The ocean has invaded the land.
The fury of the Indian monsoon
has blown the seawater over a vast area
It has encompassed thousands
of square kilometres of desert
But its a temporary sea,
it will live for only two months.
While the waters last,
the flamingos will feast
on a rich seafood cocktail.
Some years,
far out across the brackish waters,
they even nest
in the remotest stretches of the Rann
In this crowded desert kingdom,
it's only the flamingos
that have found a place
beyond the reach of man.
the Thar desert
And it's cold this morning
But in a few months
the sun will burn the ground
and temperatures will soar to
above 50 degree centigrade
This huge stretch of land
sweeps across the States
of Rajasthan and Gujarat,
and west into Pakistan
It may not rain for years,
but these sand dunes
and the dry scrublands
are home to a rich variety of wildlife.
Demoiselle Cranes by the thousand.
But what are they doing here?
The answer lies just across the dunes,
in the little village of Kheechan
This may be a desert,
but it's a desert in which
the lives of animals and people
are intimately entwined.
These harsh surroundings
forge strange alliances.
This is what the birds
have been waiting for.
Throughout the winter,
the people of Kheechan
put out grain for the cranes.
enormous amounts every day.
This extraordinary relationship
started hundreds of years ago.
In the beginning,
it must have been
a handful of demoiselle cranes
being fed by the village
Today, thousands are welcomed and fed.
But where do they all come from?
They've travelled from their
breeding grounds in Central Asia,
thousands of kilometres over the sandy
wastes of the Rajasthan desert
to this tiny village of Kheechan
In every village and waterhole
across the desert,
flocks of cranes are welcomed.
They're symbols of great fortune
and good luck.
For six months each year,
birds and people share their lives.
In this desert,
you never know what you'll find.
There are more people here
than in any other desertˇ
a hundred times the density in the Sahara
And where you find people,
you always find animals.
This is the famous fair at Pushkar.
It's been held for centuries.
People may have walked
for weeks to get here.
It's a big social event,
but they're mainly here
to buy and sell camels.
Teams of hairdressers
move through the fair.
Every camel is clipped and trimmed
And they sport the latest in bridlewear
to ensure that they look their best
This has always been a crowded desert.
But today, human populations
are increasing dramatically.
They're making new
and unsustainable demands
on its fragile resources
With such pressures,
is there any room for wildlife?
Animals that were once widespread
are now found only in the dry grasslands
at the desert's edge.
These are blackbuckˇ
most elegant of India's antelope.
This is a sacred animal,
and even a glimpse of it
is considered auspicious.
The chronicles of the Mughals
tell of herds of tens of thousands.
Emperors and maharajahs hunted them
with trained cheetahs.
Today, the numbers are a shadow
of what they once were
Only mature males are black.
Their coat is at its darkest
at the time of the rut
Each male sets up a tiny territory,
just a few metres across.
He doesn't chase females,
but waits for them to come to him.
And he has a most unusual way
of attracting them
He produces a large pile of dung.
This exotic cocktail of odours
should prove an irresistible aphrodisiac
While he waits,
small birds like larks
are drawn to the dungpiles
by the insects they attract.
They, in turn, are a magnet
for hunters... like this harrier
Jackals don't seem to worry the blackbuck
The males stay tied
to their territories.
They have their minds on other things
But the appearance of another hunter
elicits a very different reaction
The wolf
This is a real threat.
All thoughts of sex are abandoned
as the bucks flee
As soon as the danger passes,
the bucks return.
On their way back to their dungpiles,
they trespass on others' territories.
Disputes break out all along the borders
Some go no further
than strutting and posturing.
But if females are about,
this can become a fight
With such potentially lethal weapons,
this jousting and sparring
follows well-established rules
Serious injuries are rare...
but it has been known for horns
to become fatally entwined.
The bucks remain locked together,
even in death.
Whatever the outcome,
it's the female that decides
where to bestow her favours
She can wander freely
from one territory to another.
Only if a buck looks good,
and smells good,
will she choose to stay.
In a split second, it's all over.
Blackbuck thrive in arid grasslands,
but they do need water.
Yet back in the dunes,
there's an animal that survives
even the terrible dryness of the desert
It's the chinkara, the Indian gazelle.
Chinkara can go
without drinking completely.
They get all the moisture they need
from the morning dew,
and the leaves of the shrubs they eat.
Strangely, animals congregate
in greatest numbers
near the homes of a desert people,
the Bishnoi.
Today the Bishnoi
are the true guardians of the desert.
They're strict vegetarians;
their culture forbids
the killing of any living thing
Animals of all kinds
are made welcome in their fields,
and they go to incredible lengths
to prevent anyone harming them.
I'm sitting in a desert
dwelling of the Bishnois.
A few weeks ago,
a young man of this dwelling
lost his life
as he chased after armed poachers.
He took a bullet,
and was shot dead
but the life of a chinkara was saved
We may talk about making sacrifices
for conservation,
but where else would someone
give their life for an animal?
No wonder great tracts of land
around Bishnoi dwellings
have become a haven
for desert wildlife.
Away from these villages,
the desert seems empty.
But as night falls,
it's quite another story.
As the sand gives up
the heat of the day,
its surface seems to boil.
Beetles that have spent the day
hiding from the burning sun
pour out in the cool
of the desert night.
There are hunters here, too,
like the saw scale viper...
but the armour-plated beetles
have nothing to fear from it.
It's after warmer, softer prey...
like gerbils
This is what the beetles are after.
With so many people and animals
moving around the desert,
there's enough dung to feed
an army of beetles.
Some of the dung they eat,
and some they lay eggs in.
Rolling dung is hard work,
but it doesn't pay to take a breather.
At night,
you have to watch where you step.
The dunes are crawling with scorpions.
Towards dawn,
the creatures of the night
vanish into the sand.
The desert city of Jodhpur...
dominated by the massive Mehrangarah fort
Once it housed the armies
of the Maharajah.
Now it has other residents.
A new army patrols the ramparts.
From their high vantage point,
the vultures look out over a city
bustling with life
The vultures get more than living
space from the people of Jodhpur.
The streets of the city
are full of working animals...
horses and camels, elephants and oxen
Cattle are sacred.
Few would eat the meat of a cowˇ
or any of the other animals.
So what happens when they die?
Each day, the dead are taken
to the edge of the city.
As the sun warms the rooftops,
the vultures launch themselves
into the rising thermals.
Few people will even touch a dead animal
Disposing of the corpse is the task of
one small group of people, the Chamars,
with a little help from the vultures
The skin will sell for a few rupees,
or the man may use it himself
as a drumskin.
The Chamar are also ritual drummers.
Either way,
in removing the cow's skin,
he has literally opened up
an opportunity for the vultures.
As he leaves,
they tumble from the sky.
Without people and their livestock,
the desert couldn't feed anything
like this number of vultures.
And people benefit, too.
Vultures are the nation's
cleaning service.
Without them,
our life would be impossible.
In just twenty minutes,
the carcass is stripped to the bone.
Heavy with meat,
they mustn't leave it too late
to fly back to the fort.
When the sun goes down,
the rising hot air currents will die...
and they could be stranded.
All across the desert,
jackals welcome the coming of the night
And far away,
another creature appears.
The caracal.
It waits until the last gleam
of light has faded
before venturing from its lair.
This shy and beautiful cat
was once widespread,
but now it's rarely seen.
It's a hunter of the night,
but it doesn't pass up
an opportunity to scavenge
By March,
the desert pools are drying up.
The cranes will soon be flying north,
leaving the dwindling waterholes
to others.
There's been no rain for months.
Everything is drawn
to the few remaining pools...
black winged stiltsˇ
Red wattled lapwingsˇ
Spot-billed ducksˇ
and the vultures.
Even the hardy chinkara take advantage
of this last chance of a drink.
They mingle with blackbuck.
Domestic animals like buffalo
rub shoulders with wild...
These are nilgai... blue bull...
largest of India's antelope
Desert people won't kill them,
even though
they can devastate their crops
Everything shares these waterholes.
For animals wild and domestic,
it's water to drink.
It's drinking water for people, too,ˇ
and the only place to wash clothes,
pots and pans... and themselves.
Most fish would suffocate in this pool,
but these have the ability to breathe
the air when the water loses its oxygen.
As so often in this desert,
people provide
another unexpected bonus for wildlife
Soft-shelled turtles suddenly appear,
to help with the washing up
The most unlikely creatures are sacred.
The Hindu god Vishnu
once took the form of a turtle.
As the waterholes shrink,
frogs become ever more concentrated.
Easy pickings,
you might think, for egrets.
But the frogs have a spectacular trick.
They race to the centre of the pool,
where the water is too deep
for the egrets to wade.
So, to counter the frogs' ingenuity,
the egrets try a new strategy.
But they don't give up.
As they skim across the surface,
the egrets trail their feet in the water
Perhaps that will panic the frogs
into the open.
A pied kingfisher takes advantage
of the fish in the shrinking pool.
It has a nest in the bank.
The water and the fish
will soon be gone,
but for now, the pickings are easy
In a couple of weeks,
the chicks should fly the nest.
Under cover of darkness,
other hunters will stalk the pool.
The kingfisher chicks
should be safe enough in their burrow.
But all is not well
Relentless heat
has sucked the moisture from the sand.
The chick's trapped,
but its nightmare is only just beginning
A prowling ratel has been attracted
by the chicks struggles
A baby kingfisher would go down well,
if it can shake it loose
The chick is out of reach.
But the ratel hasn't given up
extraordinary?
This is truly remarkable.
Very few animals use tools
in such a calculated way.
But the log isn't quite high enough
for the ratel to reach the chick
Perhaps another log will work better.
The pond is almost dry.
Most of its fish will perish...
but not this one
These climbing perch
can survive out of water
for more than twenty four hours.
As well as gills,
they have air breathing organs
very like lungs.
They lever themselves across the mud
with spikes on their bony gill covers.
Many will die.
If they are still in the open at daybreak,
they will be easy pickings for predators
But a few will find
a more permanent pond.
Very few pools
survive the searing heat of summer.
The swimming pool
has become a cricket pitch
Though most of the desert
is full of people,
there's one place where you'd think
nothing could survive...
the sun-baked salt flats
of the Rann of Kutch.
Yet incredibly,
this is the last refuge
of the Indian wild ass...
surely one of the toughest animals
in the world
It hasn't rained for seven months.
There's not a drop of water here...
yet the ass can survive
on the scant moisture they glean
from the leaves of succulent plants
Even for the ass,
this is a testing time.
The heat saps the energy
from their bodies.
The herd is waiting...
waiting for relief
At the edge of the desert,
the people have been waiting too.
Now the gathering clouds tell them
that their long wait is over.
The monsoon has arrived.
When it rains in the desert,
it really rains.
This is what the ass
have been waiting for.
Their world has been transformed
But the water and the greenery
won't last long.
They must pack the whole
of their breeding cycle
into a few short weeks
The mares give birth to foals
conceived nearly a year ago.
And almost at once,
they're ready to mate again
Stallions battle for dominance
There's no time
for ritual and posturing.
The matter has to be settled fast,
and the result made to stick
Fights between stallions
can be bloody,
but for the victors,
winning the females
can be just as bruising.
The stallion has been given
the run around,
but eventually the mare
allows him to mount
In eleven months time,
there'll be a new foal to take advantage
of the monsoon's transient flush of green
Every foal is precious.
Less than two thousand wild ass remain
And even this place is under pressure.
Industry hasn't left the ass alone.
Thirty percent of our salt
comes from the Rann of Kutch.
But the desert
has one final surprise to spring.
It bloomsˇ
pink... with flamingos.
Thousands of flamingos flock
to the Rann of Kutch every year.
A few weeks ago,
this was a lifeless expanse
of cracked and sunscorched mud.
Now, its like a shallow sea
And it really is a sea...
for the water isn't fresh; it's salty
The ocean has invaded the land.
The fury of the Indian monsoon
has blown the seawater over a vast area
It has encompassed thousands
of square kilometres of desert
But its a temporary sea,
it will live for only two months.
While the waters last,
the flamingos will feast
on a rich seafood cocktail.
Some years,
far out across the brackish waters,
they even nest
in the remotest stretches of the Rann
In this crowded desert kingdom,
it's only the flamingos
that have found a place
beyond the reach of man.