When moving into a neighbourhood, one of the key things people look out for is the type of neighbours they would be having. Many wish for peaceful and caring neighbours and definitely not the ones that want to eat them up.
In several Indian communities, however, people there have an unusual set of neighbours. They live alongside one of the most fearsome creatures in all of Asia – tigers.
In April 2016, there was a rare piece of good news about tigers. For the first time in over a century, the number of tigers went up. The latest global census counted 3,890 tigers, compared to just 3,200 tigers in 2010.
There are lots of reasons for this increase. But one key factor is that, in some places, people are finding ways to live alongside tigers.
India is home to around half of the world’s tigers, and in several parts of the country, some local tribes co-exist fairly happily with tigers. That may sound surprising.
After all, tigers sometimes kill people, so they might seem like the worst kind of neighbours. But people are living with them regardless. The tigers in question live in a forest alongside an indigenous tribe, the Soliga people.
The Soligas see the tiger as a deity. “We worship tigers as gods,” one Soliga said at the time. “There hasn’t been a single incident of conflict with tigers and Soligas or any hunting here.”
“We have been the ones that look out for tigers,” said another. “You remove us and you remove the tigers.” The majority of the people are vegetarian, so they do not hunt wild animals for food. This means there are plenty of prey animals for the tigers to hunt.
What’s more, because the villagers mostly grow crops, they reported that they actually liked having tigers around because they keep crop-raiding animals in check. Dairy farmers also thought tigers were beneficial, as they dissuade milk thieves from infiltrating the area.
