Call of the wild: Tigress grooms mother’s cub

The call of the wild can be one of primordial love. Big cats have a solitary streak and are ruthlessly possessive about their turf and cubs, but three-year-old Bijli (T-114) of Maharashtra’s Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve is displaying astonishing behaviour by grooming the lone cub of her mother, Chhoti Tara (T-7). The two dominating tigresses of Tadoba — Maya and Chhoti Tara — had meticulously marked their territory, splitting the vast forested sweep into equal halves.