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[birds calling]
[narrator] Disneynature's Tiger tells the story of a young tigress
raising her four cubs in the jungles of India.
This film reveals what happens
when those cubs leave their mother's side
and head off to find territories of their own.
In the forest reserve where they live,
tiger numbers have doubled in the last 15 years.
And now, they're running out of space.
So young tigers must leave the safety of these sanctuaries.
And enter a new world...
shared with people.
There are many challenges to face...
[truck honking]
...but some tigers are learning to adapt.
Fortunately, there are people out there trying to help them.
While making Disneynature's Tiger,
the crew teamed up with a group of exceptionally dedicated individuals,
finding ways for people and tigers to co-exist.
[laughing]
[♪ emotional music playing]
[birds calling in distance]
They're the world's most loved animal.
Majestic...
but elusive.
It's hard enough to see a tiger...
much less film one.
For Disneynature's Tiger,
the camera team spent over 1,500 days in the jungles of India,
filming over five years.
Their patience has paid off,
capturing some of the rarest moments of tiger life.
[growls]
For some scenes, the team goes to extraordinary lengths to get the shots.
While the tiger heads out for a drink,
the crew pops in to check their remote cameras.
It's a tense moment...
but it's worth it.
It's rolling around like a kitten. That's amazing.
[narrator] Some of the other animals can get a little too friendly.
Excuse me.
Excuse me, Mr. Treepie.
Ooh.
[narrator] The hidden cameras are only designed to be tiger-proof.
[elephant grunting]
[grunting]
[camera clanking]
This camera's life is trunk-ated.
[shattering]
Yeah, bit of tape and that would be fine.
[team chuckling]
[♪ uplifting music playing]
[narrator] Two of the many camera people involved in the movie
are Indian filmmakers Pooja Rathod
and Kalyan Varma.
[Pooja] Tigers are secretive by nature.
They will only show themselves if they want to be seen.
The tiger is like a ghost in the forest.
You'd be seeing it for a minute,
and the next moment, it would camouflage so beautifully.
And because of its stripes and the way it moves,
it can disappear so quickly.
[Kalyan] Filming tigers, first of all, you need to find them.
There are many days you just don't see tigers.
And you need to be waiting for that perfect moment,
be there with your camera running at the right angle.
I really think tigers are the hardest species in the world to film.
[narrator] Pooja and Kalyan have spent many days filming one tigress
and have earned her trust.
[Pooja whispers] There's one cub there and the mother's below.
We're just watching a tigress with her cubs right there.
She's allowed us so close, which is very, very unusual for a tigress
because they're generally secretive and very careful when they have cubs
as young as they are, they're about six to eight months.
The cubs are playing and she's absolutely unbothered by our presence.
It's a very exciting moment.
Isn't it just nice to be sitting here
when they're sleeping right in front of us?
[♪ mellow music playing]
[birds chirping]
[grumbles softly]
[Kalyan] But imagine the amount of work that she's doing, right?
She has to hunt, she has to feed all these cubs.
She's really a super mom.
Seeing a mother with cubs is so, so rare in the wild and up close.
It's just, yeah, it's... it's a privilege.
[narrator] Over two years, the crew watched the cubs growing up
before their eyes.
At first, they're a bit unsteady on their paws.
[♪ playful music playing]
[cub whining]
As the cubs grow, they learn the ways of the jungle.
They discover which animals they can hunt...
[bird cawing]
…and which ones are not worth the effort.
This unique footage
paints the most intimate portrait of tiger family life ever captured.
[♪ uplifting music playing]
For Pooja and Kalyan, the toughest moment is watching the cubs head off.
At 18 months, it's time to leave their mother's side
and find a territory of their own.
[Pooja] As a cameraperson filming tigers
and following a particular cub for so long,
it's... it's very hard to not get attached to an individual.
You see the cub when it's two months old,
and then you see it grow to almost a year and a half,
and then one fine day, you know that cub is going to leave.
[♪ slow gentle music playing]
[Pooja] I really feel emotional.
I just hope that he makes it wherever he goes.
[♪ dramatic music playing]
[narrator] The number of young tigers searching for new territory is rising.
Thanks to increased protection,
there are now over 3,600 tigers across 54 reserves,
but space in these is limited.
So a third of India's tigers must live outside protected areas.
Here, they find less wild prey, but plenty of easy meals.
[cowbell ringing]
And that's bad news for farmers.
But there are simple things that can be done to help,
and there's someone who's willing to try.
[♪ cheerful music playing]
Dr. Bilal Habib from the Wildlife Institute of India
is the scientific consultant for Disneynature's Tiger.
He's one of the country's top tiger experts
and loves solving problems.
Bilal has come to Maharashtra in central India,
the heart of Tiger country.
[Bilal] This is a place where there's a lot of conflict.
A lot of cattle are being killed,
and these cattle are actually lifeline for these villagers
because it's their livelihood.
[narrator] Today, Bilal is testing out his latest idea...
once he makes it through the traffic.
[car honking]
[cow mooing]
It's an unusual approach to help cut the number of cows lost to tigers.
[background chatter]
Sometimes, you only find the way forward, by looking behind.
[cow mooing]
[background chatter]
Bilal and his team are painting eyes on cows' tail ends
while trying not to get kicked.
[Bilal speaking Hindi]
[painter in Hindi] Careful.
[cow mooing]
Be careful.
Keep it bright with red.
Draw a black dot inside the eye
to make it look like a cow's round eye.
[painter] Like this?
- We all have different ideas. - [laughter]
[narrator in English] It's hoped the eyes will fool tigers
into thinking they're being watched.
Bilal and his crew have now painted hundreds of rear-ends,
and it seems to be working.
The number of attacks has fallen dramatically.
There's a village where one of the tigers was very active
and people have lost most of the cattle to that particular individual.
As soon as we painted the cattle with eyes, this tiger immediately shifted.
Probably, tiger realized that there's cattle now
who can see on both sides,
who can see from the front and who can see from the back.
And the next time when we went to that village,
every person came with cattle for painting.
They said, "Oh, please paint our cattle. It's good. It's helping us."
[narrator] Bilal now plans to roll out this simple idea
across the whole of India.
[cow mooing]
For the last ten years,
Bilal has also been involved with another project,
but on a very different scale.
[indistinct chattering]
He's come with Disney's cameraman Kalyan
and remote camera expert Suman Raju to check on its progress.
It all started a decade ago
when Bilal was asked to solve a major problem.
Young tigers looking for a new territory
struggle to find their way between reserves,
which are often hundreds of miles apart.
They face many obstacles on their journey…
[train honking]
...but there's one barrier that's toughest of all.
Highways.
[trucks honking]
[growls]
Built over a hundred years ago,
the NH44 is India's oldest highway,
spanning the length of the entire country.
[Bilal] We have roads.
We have a lot of traffic
which actually make it impossible
for these animals to go from one place to other place.
[narrator] Some tigers travel thousands of miles,
but when they meet the highway...
they have to turn back.
[♪ somber music playing]
Bilal's solution was simple,
to lift the road up to allow the tigers to travel underneath,
creating a wildlife corridor.
It cost two and a half billion dollars.
It's the world's biggest wildlife underpass
with nine elevated sections.
And it's saving the lives of countless tigers.
[♪ uplifting music playing]
[Bilal] When I stand there and look on those massive structures
which our country has built for the tigers
to walk from one side of the forest to the other side,
it really feels emotional.
[narrator] Kalyan and Suman have been capturing
close-up shots of tigers using the underpass.
[Suman] Wow.
- Amazing, yeah? - [Suman] Yeah.
[narrator] There are now over 200 tiger crossings every year.
So imagine that vehicles going on top
and there are tigers which are moving beneath these vehicles,
and neither the lorry drivers nor the tigers know
they are at the same place at the same time.
So that's what the dream was and it's, it's, it's amazing.
[Pooja] So I think she walked on this path.
[Suman] Exactly same trail.
[narrator] Pooja has come to help Suman capture footage of a very special tigress.
- [Pooja] Amazing vantage point for her. - [Suman] Absolutely,
and this is the best place to set up the camera trap.
[narrator] What's unusual about this tigress...
is that she lives in a city.
Bhopal in Central India.
Home to 2.5 million people.
[honking]
Like any modern city, by day, it's a noisy bustling metropolis.
[honking]
But as most of the town's inhabitants head home,
another resident is heading out.
In a patch of forest that extends into the middle of the city,
a young tigress is patrolling her territory.
[motorbike revving, honking]
In the seven years she's lived here,
she's figured out how to live alongside people.
This tigress is pretty much a resident of the city,
but she's an invisible resident.
She's crossing fences,
she's walking on roads, she's in farmlands,
but she's never seen by anyone.
And that just shows an incredible adaptation.
She's perfected that skill of avoiding people
and it's amazing that in all the years that she's been here,
she hasn't hurt anyone and she's just going about her life.
[narrator] The tigress only travels at night
and returns to her cave before the city wakes up.
Suman has been following this tigress for two years.
His data is helping the forest department to understand how she lives.
Suman was drawn here
by the idea of documenting the lifestyle of an urban tiger.
You see, I'm just gonna walk.
Yeah, you sit there so that we can take the photo.
- [Pooja] I'll walk down here. - [Suman] Yeah.
[Suman] Bhopal has a special place for tiger.
No other city you could see tiger moving so close to people.
This is really fascinating to me.
[narrator] A modern city may not seem like "tiger habitat",
but Bhopal has everything a tiger needs.
It sits alongside Ratapani Wildlife Sanctuary,
where she can hunt and take cover.
There are man-made reservoirs, so the tigress will never go thirsty.
And she sleeps in sandstone caves in the hills above the city.
As long as she doesn't harm anyone,
her human neighbors are happy for the tigress to share their home.
[horns honking]
[Pooja] I think the people of Bhopal are really proud of having tigers here.
And it's so unusual because it's a predator
and everywhere else, people fear them,
but here, they're so proud of having her in their backyard.
[narrator] The city loves the tigress and is taking major steps to protect her.
The forest department employs 40 people to keep tabs on her.
Each evening, roads are closed in her territory
to allow her safe passage.
A network of CCTV towers tracks her movements.
[officer in Hindi] We are getting the location of the tiger.
[narrator in English] In charge of operations
is Divisional Forest Officer Alok Pathak.
Yes, please go ahead, put camera traps there.
Ah, I love the tigress very, very much.
She is very delicate, nice, beautiful I should say.
People of Bhopal feel very proud and very happy also
to have tigers in the vicinity.
[Suman] I think we'll try to place the trap here.
[narrator] Pooja and Suman are now deploying
extra remote cameras across her territory
to see if the tigress has had cubs.
The whole city is hoping to hear the patter of tiny paws.
[bird calling]
All across India, the tiger occupies a special place in people's hearts.
[Pooja] For a lot of people in India,
tiger, which is also called as Waghoba, is Dev, which means he's God.
A lot of people worship it, especially in the rural areas,
for its strength and power and the fact that it rules the forest.
[narrator] Tigers have lived with people for thousands of years.
They're adored like royalty...
[♪ upbeat festive music playing]
...and celebrated with festivals.
It's this connection that allows humans and tigers to live side by side.
[Pooja] I think India stands out amongst most nations in the world
for the kind of tolerance
that the people of the country show towards wildlife, especially tigers.
[narrator] Tigers living around the edges of reserves
soon learn to avoid humans.
[dog barking in distance]
[indistinct chattering]
By day, they rest out of sight.
[insects chirping]
[indistinct chattering]
If they hear someone coming, they stay hidden.
[indistinct chattering in distance]
They only come out at dusk, when the people have left.
[Pooja] Tigers don't look at humans as prey.
In fact, they are quite afraid of people, of anything standing on two feet,
they're afraid of them.
[narrator] But tragic accidents can occur.
When villagers work late in the forest,
a young inexperienced tiger may mistake them for prey animals.
[Kalyan] When a human being crouches down,
from a tiger's point of view, that looks like a prey species.
Almost all human deaths because of tigers are accidental deaths.
[narrator] In some parts of India, the rise in tiger numbers
is causing a dramatic spike in attacks.
[Pooja] Increasing tiger numbers is good news, you know.
It's a conservation success story for the world.
But a lot of people pay a price for this rise in tiger numbers.
What is at stake is the years of tolerance
that people have shown towards these tigers.
[♪ light music playing]
[narrator] While filming on the edges of tiger reserves,
Pooja and Kalyan have witnessed the efforts of the people
working to keep both villagers and tigers safe.
[villager speaking Hindi]
[in Hindi] Everyone please huddle.
[narrator in English] The Forest Department Primary Response team
is the first to be called when there's a problem tiger.
[speaking Hindi]
Forest Guard Shital Thakre has been doing the job for six years.
Today, her team has been called to a village
where someone has been killed.
[in Hindi] When we get a call from the village,
we go there to see what's happened.
We feel terrible to find that a woman has been killed by a tiger.
[narrator in English] The primary response team is sent in
to identify the problem tiger
so it can be captured and taken into captivity.
With the tiger still nearby,
Shital's priority is to keep the people safe.
[in Hindi] There are wild animals moving through the farms.
So nobody should stay late on the farms or go into the forest.
[narrator in English] In this area, on the outskirts of Tadoba National Park,
the number of tigers has quadrupled in just ten years.
[chattering in Hindi]
[in Hindi] This is not a one-off incident. There are many like this.
If there's an incident anywhere,
we have to get ready and go there straight away.
We have to be alert 24 hours a day.
[chattering in Hindi]
[narrator in English] Tigers are most active at night.
[team howling]
Shital and her team sweep the surrounding area,
hoping to push the tiger away from the village.
[team howling]
It's a dangerous job.
- [explosive booms] - [howling continues]
[team member in Hindi] Pay attention at the back.
[narrator in English] They need to identify which tiger they're dealing with.
Rakesh, the team biologist, studies images caught on remote cameras.
[Rakesh] Um, six.
[narrator] Every tiger has a unique set of stripes.
By comparing them, he can see it's a young male called P2.
- [Rakesh in Hindi] Let's go. - [team yelling]
[team chattering]
[narrator in English] The presence of the team overnight
helps the villagers feel safer.
The rising number of tigers is raising fears.
[Shital in Hindi] There's limited space
and there will be more problems in years to come.
We have to help people understand
that tigers don't usually kill humans.
These are accidents.
We will try to make sure that this doesn't happen in the future.
[team chattering]
[sizzling]
[narrator in English] Shital lives alone, a long way from home.
At times like this, she misses her family more than ever.
[tool clanking]
Hi.
[laughter]
[in Hindi] Tell me how's your health?
Everything is well.
[laughter on phone]
[Shital's relative 1] Come home. Mother has made sabzi.
[Shital's relative 2] When are you coming to the village?
Yes. I'll come. [chuckles]
- [in English] Bye-bye. - [Shital] Bye-bye.
[narrator] Shital's family wants her to return to the village,
but she feels a strong calling for this work.
[Shital in Hindi] I love my job at the forest,
I like that I am in touch with the jungle, the animals and the people.
So for now, I want to continue living alone.
[narrator in English] Shital is proud to be one of the few women doing her job.
[in Hindi] I want to tell women to fulfill their dreams.
If they want to become a forest guard or anything else,
they must go for it.
[narrator] Back at the village,
Shital and her team are under pressure to remove the problem tiger.
[chatter in Hindi]
And when a tiger needs capturing,
the person to call is wildlife vet Dr. Ravi Khobrogade.
- [animal grunting] - When he's not catching tigers,
Ravi is caring for orphaned animals at his treatment center,
like this baby sloth bear.
[Ravi] We have to do hand-rearing.
Right now we are behaving like her mother.
[narrator] When the call comes through,
Ravi has to mobilize his rapid rescue team.
They've been asked to tranquilize the problem tiger P2
and take him away from the village.
P2 will be their 50th tiger capture if they can find him.
[Ravi] We have to think like a tiger.
This is the big lesson that I learned from the rescue of tigers.
I must know what will be the next step of the tiger.
[♪ dramatic music playing]
[narrator] Ravi and his team are searching for a single tiger, known as P2.
He's a moving needle in a giant haystack.
The plan is to capture P2 and take him into captivity,
but it's not going to be easy.
Two days later, Ravi hears that P2 has killed a cow on the edge of a farm.
They plan to stake out the location hoping that P2 returns to feed.
[indistinct chattering]
Ravi's assistant, Ajay, will be using a dart gun to tranquilize the tiger.
[Ravi] Okay. Done.
[indistinct chattering]
[narrator] Ravi and Ajay settle in for the night.
[insects chirping]
[Ravi] Tiger is always clever, man,
that's why he's the king of jungle.
So we must think to overcome their cleverness.
Now we are just waiting and watching all around us.
[insects chirping]
[narrator] It was a long wait...
with nothing to show for it.
Yesterday's night is too hard for us
and tiger animal is not come.
So let us see.
Again we try.
Try again, try again, we'll get success.
[narrator] A week later, the team catch a break.
There's been a sighting of P2 and they rush to the spot.
[Ravi in Hindi] Ajay, can you see the tiger there?
[narrator in English] At last, they get their first glimpse of P2.
They need to dart his back end,
so they must wait until he's facing the right way.
[♪ suspenseful music playing]
[soft grunting]
[Ravi in Hindi] Can we take the shot?
[Ajay] I can see the tiger but it's in a head-on position.
[Ravi in English] The shot is risky.
[Ravi in Hindi] Let's not take the shot unless we get the right position.
[narrator in English] P2 slips back into the forest.
[Ravi] Oh, my God.
[narrator] They've missed their chance.
But overnight, a remote camera has captured a fresh image.
The team picks up the trail.
P2 is only 20 yards away.
They just need him to turn around.
[P2 grumbles softly]
[♪ suspenseful music playing]
Bullseye.
Weighing around 500 pounds,
it takes the whole crew to carry P2 to the transport cage.
[Ravi speaking Hindi]
[Ravi's team speaking Hindi]
It's a huge relief for Ravi's team.
[indistinct chatter]
And a welcome sight for the villagers.
[chattering]
We've revived it and now he's very comfortable, relaxed.
It's a very good tiger, it's around two and a half years old,
it's a sub-adult and male and a massive male also.
You see the villagers, they are very happy
because they think that they have solved the problem.
[horn honking]
[narrator] The community comes out to see the tiger off.
[horn honking]
On the three-hour journey to the treatment center,
Ravi feels conflicted.
I just feel very sorry when I, uh, put the tiger in the cage.
When I saw the tiger in the field, I darted him, and I send it to the zoo.
At that time, our team will get very sad
that we just end the freedom of that particular fellow.
[horn honking]
[Ravi's teammate speaking Hindi]
[narrator] The treatment center is just a temporary holding place for P2.
Ravi will now try to find him a permanent home at a zoo.
[P2 grumbles softly]
P2 will never return to the wild,
but relocating him will help local people remain tolerant of tigers.
[grumbles]
[animals calling]
Not far away, on the eastern edge of Tadoba National Park,
some other tigers are also being moved to a new home,
but for a very different reason.
Bilal is planning to do some tiger match-making.
He's hoping to gather five females from here
and introduce them to potential mates.
A hundred and twenty miles north, in Nagzira National Park,
tiger numbers are on the rise but they're mostly males.
[growls]
Male tigers find it easier than females to reach here from faraway forests.
But without females, the population is doomed.
And there's another benefit to Bilal's plan.
He's taking the tigresses away from an area where there's lots of people.
[bleating]
[Bilal] It's a win-win situation.
If we are successful in getting at least five, six females
from this particular landscape to the other area,
so it's good for everybody,
for conservation, for tigers and for people.
[narrator] It's an ambitious and visionary idea,
but first, they have to find the right tiger.
They're deliberately looking for a shy tigress,
one that will avoid humans and their livestock.
But a shy tiger is tricky to catch.
Ravi the vet and his team are here for the capture.
There are clear signs of the tiger...
[Bilal] This is the pugmark of a female.
[narrator] But she stays hidden from view.
[Bilal speaking Hindi]
After several days and nights searching,
it's proving harder than they thought.
[Bilal speaking Hindi]
[narrator] If they can't catch the first female,
the whole match-making project will fail before it's even started.
[Bilal] They are so shy.
Even if they are just resting ten meters away from you,
it's very difficult to spot them.
So that makes it very difficult for us to track her and to capture her.
[narrator] It may be months before Bilal has a tigress to move.
Pooja and Kalyan are witnessing another impact of rising tiger numbers.
More tigers fighting over territory.
[tiger rumbling softly]
This young tiger has blundered into the path of a huge male.
[♪ suspenseful music playing]
[growling]
The older tiger makes it clear they're not welcome.
One side usually backs down.
But sometimes, the loser can get badly hurt.
[grunting]
Pooja and Kalyan have come across a wounded male.
Their footage will help forest guards identify the tiger
when they report the injury.
Look to your right.
I'm zoomed in fully, I can see the wound.
He's licking the wound right now.
Ah, he's limping, oh God.
I think he's quite badly injured.
He's limping at the moment and he has this really bad injuries
so I'm really worried for him because there are lots of tigers here
and he's just going to have to fight or leave to be able to survive.
[Kalyan] He's licking his wounds
but if they don't heal, he's in real big danger
because he has only two options.
One is he just won't be able to hunt and he'll die of starvation.
The only other option is that he starts picking easy prey, which is cattle.
And that's the start of human-wildlife conflict.
And usually, that doesn't end well for the tigers.
[narrator] The forest guards will now keep an eye on the tiger,
and if necessary, bring it into Ravi's treatment center.
[tiger growling]
For Ravi, the rise in tigers means there are many more cubs to care for.
Today, he's looking after a young tigress who's become separated from her mother.
[Ravi] She's around five to six months old.
But when we observed in the field, she is emaciated, dehydrated and so weak.
So that's why we rescued from the field
and we are monitoring, we are locating the female
so that the cub will be reunited with the female
and she will remain in the wild.
That will be the happy ending for the female cub.
[narrator] There's good news for P2, the captured tiger.
Ravi will soon be sending him to a new home.
He's going to one of the world's largest zoos in the city of Nagpur,
where he'll share an enclosure with a female tiger.
[Ravi] P2.
P2, how are you?
[grumbles softly]
Don't worry.
You will get the big enclosure,
get the new females also.
Then you will enjoy life.
So don't worry.
[indistinct chattering]
[narrator] P2 is lucky.
Roughly half of all tigers leaving protected areas don't make it.
[indistinct chattering]
A female tiger has been found dead and brought into Ravi's center.
He confirms her cause of death and conducts her cremation.
[indistinct chattering]
The funeral rites reflect the honor and respect held for every tiger.
[Ravi] It's a very black day for us.
Because we lost a full-grown adult tigress due to such...
unbelievable thing that is electrocution.
That should not happen.
[narrator] Electrocution is the number one cause of tiger deaths.
Electric fencing is often placed around fields
to stop wild deer and boar from eating the crops.
But the tigers don't see the wires until it's too late.
One female can produce four cubs in a year
so you can imagine the loss of the wild tigers.
- [teacher in Hindi] Stand at ease. - [students speaking Hindi]
- [teacher] Attention. - [students speaking Hindi]
[narrator in English] To avoid more tiger deaths in the future,
the next generation needs to understand more about them.
[all singing Hindi]
Shital and Rakesh have come to a school on the edge of Tadoba National Park.
They're here to share their knowledge of tigers with the kids
and teach them what to do if they meet one.
[in Hindi] Have you ever seen a tiger?
[students] Yes.
[Shital] What will you do when you spot a tiger?
Will you run?
If you run, he'll think that you're his prey.
Just make noise and stay where you are.
[Rakesh] Can you see the tiger?
[students] No.
[Rakesh] Did you see it? Where is it?
Did you spot him?
[students] Yes.
- [Rakesh] What do you see? - [students in English] Tiger.
[students laughing]
- [Rakesh in Hindi] Did it run away? - [students speak Hindi]
- [students chuckle] - [Rakesh speaks Hindi]
[narrator in English] Shital hopes the kids will share these safety tips
with their friends and families.
[Shital in Hindi] When we explain this to the children in the school,
they will explain it to their parents.
So this message can spread,
and human-wildlife conflict can be reduced.
[chattering]
[narrator in English] Lessons over,
the class heads out to a patch of degraded forest,
to help replant the area with trees.
[♪ light music playing]
[in Hindi] When these plants grow into trees,
wild animals can rest under their shade.
Students, do you want to become a forest guard like Shital?
- [students] Yes. - [Rakesh] Hm?
[students] Yes.
[indistinct chattering]
[Rakesh] Do you feel good planting the tree?
[students] Yes.
[Rakesh] When you pass by this tree, you'll remember planting it.
[chatter in Hindi]
[♪ bright music playing]
[narrator in English] After six months of trying,
Bilal has finally caught a tigress.
She's on her way to meet the lonely males waiting for her at Nagzira National Park.
If she makes a match, she'll help repopulate the reserve.
Instead of having to find her own territory,
she's taking the easy way, hitching a ride.
NAWEGAON-NAGZIRA TIGER RESERVE PITEZARI ENTRANCE
In Nagzira, she'll have lots of space...
and every chance of meeting a mate.
[in Hindi] Okay, five or six people come fast.
We can't waste time.
[vet speaking Hindi]
[narrator in English] The tigress has been tranquilized
so that Bilal and the vet team can give her a health check
and attach a GPS collar before she's released.
[vets speaking Hindi]
[narrator] The collar will enable Bilal to track the tiger's movements
as she starts to explore her new territory.
It will stay attached for the next year
and will then be remotely triggered to fall off by itself.
Ravi the vet is on hand to monitor the tiger's condition
and make sure she is fit for release.
[speaking Hindi]
They check her weight and measurements,
to add to their growing database of tigers.
[Bilal speaking Hindi]
[overlapping chatter]
She's young, you have seen her teeth.
They are shining white with a very small groove on that,
which indicates that she is around two years of age.
So she is actually of that particular age
where she's going to go out, look for a territory
and look for a partner and then raise her cubs of her own.
[narrator] It's the first project of its kind in India
and it's attracting a lot of attention.
The tiger will be released by the state Forest Minister.
[speaking Hindi]
Basically, this is the final day, this is we can say the marriage day.
See this, all people are very happy
because we are going to introduce the female in the area of the males.
[♪ bright music playing]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[narrator] Five years of planning have all come down to this moment.
In the next ten minutes, she's going to be out there in the wild.
[♪ dramatic music playing]
[narrator] It's time to release the tigress into her new home.
[growling softly]
[roaring]
[♪ upbeat music playing]
- [laughing] - [crowd cheering]
[murmuring]
Finally, we did it.
As she just came out from the cage, she is so happy in my sense,
because she is going to the wild.
This is heaven for her.
She may have the cute, cute tigress cubs so she will enjoy.
[Bilal] This is a place of hope for her
where she has a higher chance of breeding,
having a territory of her own, having a litter of her own,
having a home of her own.
It's really a great feeling but the real job begins from tomorrow,
when she will start exploring a territory where she has never been.
[narrator] Over the next few months,
Bilal and his team follow the tiger around the clock.
Using signals from the collar, they track her on the ground
and also from space,
mapping her every move.
The tigress is settling in well.
She hasn't strayed into any villages.
And she's got company.
It's now four months, and this female is doing perfectly fine.
She has established her territory.
[buzzing]
She has been seen many times with the male.
So we hope that she has also mated a couple of times.
And we hope that, in coming days, she's going to litter,
she's going to produce young ones in this new territory.
[narrator] So far so good.
The move is a success.
Over the next year,
four more female tigers will be brought here
to help boost the population.
[Bilal] So this was a dream and it has come true.
And we can continue to follow these tigers in Nagzira
and see how this population is going to do in the next five, ten years.
[narrator] Meanwhile, Ravi has come to see P2 in his new home,
Gorewada Zoo, one of the largest in the world.
P2 now has a huge natural enclosure,
and will soon be joined by a new female.
[Ravi] It's a very good morning
because I'm just very happy to see P2 tiger.
Having the 60 acres enclosure, it's a very good space for any tiger.
[growls softly]
[narrator] P2 has a new role,
as an ambassador for tigers.
[♪ mellow music playing]
[Ravi] Everyone can visit him,
and everyone can know him.
If you see the tiger for a while, you will never forget it,
because it's so beautiful, so majestic.
[tourists chattering]
[narrator] P2 may never go back to the wild
but he will help inspire the next generation
to care about the future of tigers.
Pooja and Kalyan also want to inspire people to think about tigers differently.
[speaking Hindi]
They've come to a village close to Tadoba Tiger Reserve.
A lot of people who are here have misconceptions about tigers.
They think all tigers are man-eaters and that they are there to harm them.
[narrator] Pooja and Kalyan have created a short film
that they're about to screen for the first time.
A crowd of over 300 have gathered for the show,
including forest guard Shital and her team.
[crowd chattering]
- Hello. - [villagers] Hello.
[in Hindi] Hi, my name is Pooja.
And I'm going to show you a short film about tigers.
This film will give you a message from the tiger.
So do you want to watch this story?
[all] Yes!
- Okay. - Okay, let's start.
[applause, chattering]
[narrator in English] The story is narrated
in the local language, Marathi,
from the point of view of the tiger.
[narrator in film in Marathi] Days pass by and we grow up
bigger and stronger.
[narrator in English] For the villagers,
it's the first time they're seeing images of tiger family life.
[narrator in film in Marathi] We're ready to follow mom on her adventures.
[narrator in English] The film shows the cubs
coming to grips with their jungle home,
and the challenges they face growing up.
[monkey barks]
[tiger whines]
[villagers chuckling]
The film also gives villagers tips on how to stay safe in the forest.
[in Marathi] If you must come into the forest,
walk in groups and make noise
so I know you're there and I can avoid you.
[Pooja in English] I'm really overwhelmed.
Just looking at the crowd, looking at how just hooked to the screen they were.
The people who came here to watch the film have real-life problems.
They have interactions with tigers on a daily basis.
If this film even saves one life, I think we've done our job.
[in Hindi] Thank you for coming.
We'll meet soon. Thank you.
[narrator in English] And the message is spreading.
In some places, a new attitude to tigers is creating surprising opportunities.
Bilal is on his way to the village of Alijanja.
[rooster crowing]
Co-existence will only be possible if this is economically beneficial
to the local people,
who share their landscape with these large predators.
[narrator] Instead of battling with the wildlife on their door-step,
the community here is embracing it.
In the first re-wilding project of its kind in India,
farmers are paid to keep their cattle off the grasslands.
This encourages wild animals,
which naturally attract tigers,
who bring in tourists.
[in Hindi] There are four female tigresses in our zone.
And all of them have cubs.
And their father is called Chota Matka, the male tiger.
[indistinct chatter]
[narrator in English] Local guide Arvind now makes a living
from taking tourists on nature walks in the landscape.
[Arvind] Kingfisher bird!
[narrator] A small eco-lodge is also creating jobs for local people.
[in Hindi] We are getting good income and all the families of the village are happy.
We never cause any damage to the forest
and in the future, we will preserve the forest because it's our livelihood.
[narrator in English] Bilal has been helping
since the project started in 2015.
[speaking Hindi]
He's loved seeing how local attitudes towards wildlife have changed.
[Bilal] Imagine when this was not a nature conservancy.
So the farmers were trying to protect this land from crop-raiding deers.
So they were considered as pests.
Today, the same farmer wants to see deer in his land
because that's giving more money.
So this is how the landscape has converted a pest into a resource.
[narrator] The more deer,
the more tigers.
In this village, the current rise in tiger numbers is a cause for celebration.
[Arvind in Hindi] As the tiger population increases, so does the number of tourists.
Which is good for us.
Now we're getting paid well.
[Bilal in English] This is the first example of rewilding farmland
close to a protected area in India.
So if this is successful,
there can be hundreds and hundreds of nature conservancies in India.
[narrator] Back in Bhopal, home to the urban tigress,
Pooja and Suman are checking their remote cameras.
- Come only after sunset. - [Pooja] Mm.
[narrator] They're hoping to see the first images of her cubs.
- Hey. Let's see what we've got. - Yeah.
- [Suman] Oh, my God. - [Pooja] Oh, there's the mother.
Followed by the cubs.
[Pooja] Wow.
[Suman] The first cub coming out.
- Wow. - Oh, wow.
[chuckles]
[narrator] The urban tigress has four cubs, now aged around five months.
- Oh, my God, the one after the other. - [Pooja] Yeah.
[Suman] All of them are peeping their heads into the fence.
[Pooja] Wow.
She just, like, squeezed in, she's too big for it.
Yeah, so cute actually.
It's teaching them how to come out from the fence.
Isn't it so lovely, right?
And they're so quick learners.
[Pooja] They look pretty healthy.
[Suman] Yeah, absolutely healthy.
Such a beautiful shot we got.
[narrator] Bhopal's tigress is bringing up the next generation of urban tigers.
They're now learning how to be street-smart cubs.
[Pooja] She's raising these four cubs
and she's actually showing them her territory,
she's showing them where they can hunt,
where they can find water.
[Suman] It's showing these cubs how to move in the landscape,
how to stay secretive and not get exposed to the people,
showing how to survive inside the city.
Such a great mother it is, actually.
[narrator] And it's not just tigers appearing on the remote cameras.
[animal calling]
Bhopal has secret residents of all shapes and sizes.
Some neighbors can be prickly.
With no respect for privacy.
[growling]
At night, all the animals are on the move
and trying to make it home before sunrise.
Better keep up with mom.
Some are naturally curious...
especially the tiger cubs.
[clattering]
[♪ playful music playing]
[clanking]
Oops.
The cubs will continue to learn from their mother
until it's time to find their own territories.
One day, they'll show their own young how to survive close to a city
and the knowledge will be passed down through the generations.
I feel like that is what India is going to need in future,
like, tigers that show adaptations to living around people.
And she's just showing us how tigers can do that.
She's the hope for the future.
[animals calling]
[narrator] After five years of filming,
it's time for the Disneynature crew to pack up and head home.
They leave knowing that India's tigers are on the rise.
And as they move into human areas,
some tigers are showing how it's possible to thrive in a world of people.
[Bilal] It's a challenge.
And they're doing it beautifully.
They're doing it in a most amazing manner
to live with humans.
[chattering]
[narrator] And people are also playing their part
to ensure this unique relationship lasts into the future.
[Bilal] I think there is always a space in the heart of the people
to live with tigers,
to share the landscape with these magnificent carnivores.
[♪ upbeat music playing]