Bandipur National Park was a private Game Reserve of the Maharaja of Mysore till 1947. Now, it is famous as Bandipur Tiger Reserve and a lot of money is spent here for tiger conservation project, known as Tiger Project. Happy days for forest officers…

The 23rd July 2011 Tehelka magazine has an exclusive story concerning this Tiger Reserve where hand - raised leopards released to the wild by two members of Mysore royalty — Gajendra Singh and Vishalakshi Devi (sister of the scion of the royal family Srikanta Datta Narasimharaja Wadiyar) — on a “rehabilitation experiment” had gone horribly wrong.

This couple who owns a resort at the Reserve, “Tusker Trails”, are animal lovers. Some 13 years ago, the couple had received two "abandoned leopard cubs" from the forest staff and brought them up at their Bandipur Resort. They were christened as Bully and Baby. On attaining the age of two years, they were released to the forests (for rehabilitation). Sadly, the male Bully was gored to death by a Sambar stag within days of release. Naturally, the homebred Bully was not trained to hunt and it became the hunted. But the female Baby survived and even produced a few litters — apparently had a whale of a time in the forest with her mate!

The Forest Department had in 2010 sent two such "abandoned" cubs to the Singhs, named aptly as Shadow and Light, for their care. One more named Colour, was also given to their care later by the Forest Department. They were, however, shifted to an electric - fenced enclosure, where the Singhs used to visit them daily with food.

The Tehelka report says these domesticated leopards released into the forest for "rehabilitation" had indeed become “man – eaters” and had killed two local Kurubas and mauled one who had entered the forest. Apparently, the "experiment backfired." However, the sad part is that the surviving kins of these Kurubas did not get any compensation.

By the way, the Tusker Trail resort is now taken over by Windflower Group.

Bandipur is also a regular haunt of the renowned wild - life photographers Krupakar and Senani. Their documentary film titled the Wild Dog Dairies produced for National Geographic Channel got rave reviews and also an award. This is the duo who were also kidnapped by that notorious poacher Veerappan and then released on realising that they, after all, were not a big catch to get a huge ransom.

They have now written a book titled Birds, Beasts and Bandits published by Penguin and hope to make money from Veerappan's misadventure — where Veerappan lost, this duo gained. Best of luck.