A new lease of life to warring swamp deer
tigers were on the prowl in the farmlands of Lakhimpur Kheri district who had killed several people.
The then chief wildlife warden Chandra Bhan Singh constituted four teams to rein in the tigers and Dr Rahul Shukla joined this expedition as an expert on farmland wildlife.
The team reached my place in Gola, famous for its Shiva temple named Gokaran Nath. Here I was first introduced to Shukla by Late Shiv Chandra Dixit, my neighbour and a member of legislative council. I was 25 then.
I took the opportunity to accompany Shukla and we had a great time together.
It was an industrious outing, where one night we came across a family of five tigers, but the most significant incident that happened was that of a fight between two swamp deer that created a peculiar situation.
One morning, we were camping at Nibua when a messenger told us that two swamp deer were fighting at the banks of Sharda river. During the fight, their horns got entangled and they were unable to separate.
When we reached the spot, we found that the two deer were struggling to separate themselves in a huge wheat field surrounded by sugarcane plantations from all sides.
Several grazers and farm labourers had already encircled the stags and were acting like a referee.
Some mischievous elements were taking advantage of their helplessness and were hitting on their legs with sticks, eyeing them as a meaty gift of providence for the village banquet. Their plan was foiled when we reached the spot and pushed the crowd back.
Both the stags were huge and
