► Swamp Tigers - Rare footage of the royal Bengal (Sky Vision Documentary)

[Music] a tangled mangrove forest on the bay of bengal is the kingdom of a creature rarely seen by humans one of the most efficient predators on earth this animal is feared as a killer and a maneater [Music] the legendary swamp tiger [Music] these Tigers are so elusive that all attempts to track them in these impenetrable swamps ended in failure two years ago cameraman Mike Hurd captured the swamp tiger on film for the first time it was an extraordinary breakthrough the first glimpse into the secret life of the least-known tiger in the world the swamp tiger of the Bangladeshi Sunderbans this first Tiger footage was tantalizing and all-too-brief [Music] but for Mike it was enough to stir a passion he resolved to return and unravel the secrets of this mysterious creature the Tigers have never been filmed here before and I knew that it could be done and gone so far along the road to getting the Tigers and then we just ran out of time I haven't filmed the manga forest before and it's just such a fantastic place to actually see these amazing animals walking around in these forests that's what appealed to me and that's what I really wanted to see the Sunderbans are remote and dangerous Mike will need an armed guard day and night somewhere in these six thousand square miles ten thousand square kilometres are a few hundred Tigers yet the only way to track them is on foot we've just been following these tracks along here I don't know how old they're but here some tiger feces and I don't know how fresh it is I guess they can give it a poke the team will be here for the next six months Roubaix Mansoor knows the area intimately he's been bringing small parties of natural ists here since he was a child without his help finding the Tigers in this labyrinth would be impossible Roubaix makes sure they're floating mobile home the albuja keeps as close as possible for safety it must never be out of radio contact the nearest settlement is over a day away poor mighty rivers rise in the Himalayas and passed through Bangladesh dividing into small streams and channels to pour into the sea in the Bay of Bengal they form an intricate mangrove Delta a collection of sand banks and mud held together by tangled roots floodwaters carry human victims downstream corpses are washed onto the muddy banks of the Sunderbans giving some Tigers the taste for human flesh [Music] every year up to a hundred people are killed by Tigers yet for the poor there is no alternative [Music] these fishermen spend months on board their boats trying to avoid the bandits who steal their catch in their belongings they practice an ancient fishing technique trained doctors drive the fish into their nets so that the men can hold them up controlled by a simple harness they force the fish from their hiding-places in the reeds and into open water the otters are awarded with their own fish meal from time to time as they chew the fish they flick them from one side of their mouth to the other to keep a firm grip while still swimming they make a good living [Music] on the muddy Bank the first telltale trace of the tiger a recent set of pug marks leading deep into the forest then more evidence huge claw marks on a tree because of jumping up on here the scratch marks you can see that much further been standing the air is thick with the pungent smell of Tiger Mike believes it must be a tigress and the set of muddy prints confirms she is still very close trying to track a tiger and film it on foot would be very dangerous probably impossible Mike's best chance is to base himself in a likely location and wait for the tiger to come to him building a safe hide ten feet up in the air is the next step he will spend up to 48 hours at a time here and he can't risk being seen Tigers have eyesight six times better than humans an adult tiger measures nine feet about three meters from head to tail jumping up to Mike in his hide would be very possible and some of these giants are said to relish human flesh Mike has his own way to defend himself I've got this it is starting pistol and what does it makes a very big loud noise and I also got a marine flare that ski off anything from now on he's on his own the rest of the team will wait offshore in the boat [Music] the hide offers a clear view into the magical forest now ruled by the tiger at one time it was filled with Buffalo Indian bison and Rhino they were hunted out by shooting parties a hundred years ago [Music] but some animals still thrive in this watery jungle red-faced macaque monkeys watch over their youngsters as they play at eating leaves and fruits as the infants reach sexual maturity their faces will redden - still relying on mother's milk the baby picks fruit and drops it to the forest floor perhaps he is just copying what the adults do living in large family troops of 20 to 30 animals they form a tight clannish community grooming each other is reassuring and reaffirms their close family bonds high in the trees these youngsters will grow up in relative safety with their keen senses and deft movements they are rarely prey for the tiger but the messy eating habits of the macaques chewing bits of kyoro leaf and then discarding them make them vital companions for the favorite tiger victim the spotted deer or cheetah licking off insects and moisture first the macaque send a constant rain of debris to the forest floor deer will seek out macaques from up to 70 yards 60 metres away and follow them all day he hora leaves are also the main diet of the spotted deer so keeping them attacks in their sights means they will be well fed without any effort on their part a troop this size will drop over a ton of leaves in the course of a year it appears a relaxed relationship but monkeys and deer live in constant fear of the tiger in fact the monkeys provide an even more crucial service for the deer the keen-eyed macaques are ever alert to the presence of the tiger and will screech out a warning whenever it comes near [Music] spotted deer are ideal prey for the tiger so the deer stay close to the monkeys following them for hours on end the deer have learned to make do outside the mangrove forest they prefer eating grass reaching the leaves can be hard work and after a time all the easier pickings have been taken the males at least can stretch that far on their hind legs the females cannot compete and only get in the way then moved on with a gentle nudge the trees are meticulously trimmed to the level the deer can reach but this is strenuous work and the rewards are slim better to rely on following the trail of the monkeys especially if you're small having found a leaf this fawn finds it not quite to its taste it still hasn't been weaned and mother's milk is sweeter keeping one ear alert the warning cry of the macaques mother relies not only on the leaves discarded by the monkeys but also food washed in by the tide and trapped by the mangrove roots the Sunderbans is a constantly changing world mud Laden floodwaters entered a delta and mixed with the tides that bathed the roots of the mangroves twice a day saturated with topsoil dragged from the Himalayas and fields along the way the floodwaters are slowed in the mud settles as the tides recede it builds up in the gnarled roots and slowly forms a new forest floor along the coast the constant flooding also causes great damage [Music] maude is washed away from the roots of the trees and they lose their tenuous grip [Music] Old Forest dies and becomes a graveyard to survive here animals have to adapt to every change [Music] with plenty of prey around Mike had expected to find evidence of the tiger but he was disappointed and it's time to move on the team are moving deeper into the jungle the mangrove roots pierced the cloying mud in search of air the mud is unpleasant and sticky but it revealed new evidence it has captured a deep imprint of a tiger fresh pugmarks which must have been made just minutes ago [Music] really really nice place it's it's what I've been looking for it's really good it's got all these aerial roots the says soon the bands and there's a tiger he'll a new hide is built and concealed by palms Mike is expecting a long wait but he's taken by surprise through the trees two weeks after arriving in the Sunderbans mike catches his first glimpse of the creature he is trying so hard to understand I spent the whole night in the in the hide and I could hear them feeding I could hear the the bones cracking so I knew the Tigers were around [Music] I saw this scruffy young tiger coming out of the forest and it was all wet and dirty looking and it looked like it just crossed a creek but it was amazing to see it because I heard it during the night and it looked very very scared it was incredibly apprehensive but maybe that was because it was on its own so there must have been another Tiger around I guess the cub was probably about eight or nine months old and then there were two I thought well that makes sense because a cub this size wouldn't be on its own but if there are two cubs where's mother the two young cubs hang around nervously for some 30 minutes alone in the open forest it was obvious that the cubs were from the same family because Cubs from different family groups wouldn't tolerate each other they must have been siblings because I couldn't tell them apart stripes were so similar they did seem to be waiting for something and then I could see mom just looking at me through the trees and I can she was quite apprehensive but she came into the into the clearing and sat down but she watched me all this time and although the Cubs were walking around I had to be really careful and not move the lens too quickly in case I scared them all one cub came up a nose old mum and then incredibly two more appeared and there were three altogether it's absolutely extraordinary a female tiger with three cubs only 30 metres away in this forest and I realized that this is a family of four that's absolutely amazing Mike was the first person in the world ever to film a sunderbans tiger now he films four of them all at once to perfect his view of the Tigers and better observe their behavior Mike looks out a sight for another hide in a parallel channel should be directly in line with me here he is going to try out an idea he's been thinking about for a while he's going to put a hide right in the water that way his chances of seeing the tiger in the open will be greatly increased no one has tried this before but mike has spent so long working out how this special tiger operates he reckons he will have a good chance of filming them from here all the bamboos and planks for the sturdy tower or machan had to be brought here by boat since this hide sits quite low Mike will be vulnerable so the hide is virtually a cage the local team are amazed it's secure and once clothed in greenery looks well disguised but the Tigers will almost certainly be aware of Mike's presence their sense of smell is acute once he begins Mike will be on his own for many long hours and once the Tigers turn up he will be unable to get out of the hide until they leave the scene the view is different and distinctive Mike's first visitor is a brilliantly colored jungle fowl ancestor of the domestic chicken it searches for insects through the roots its feathers iridescent against the gray sludge there are no Tigers but all around are birds such as the golden backed woodpecker and the curious racket tailed Ronda as well as deer and the occasional monkey wild boar are also food for Tigers in exchange for a ride the jungle crows groom the boar who seemed deceptively docile but boar feed on deer too and will attack and bring down live animals [Music] [Applause] [Music] a mother with Cubs to feed will hunt at any time day or night each time the Cubs move away from their mother or come back from an exploratory trip they exchange reassuring nuzzles [Music] sometimes they will follow her but not tonight with four mouths to feed she needs to make a kill every two or three days on her own she could survive for a week one of the most successful predators on earth the tiger moves without a sound it relies completely on stone a successful hunt depends on getting close enough to take its prey by surprise strong swimmers Sunderbans Tigers have been known to take their victims in the water [Music] [Music] the deer rush frantically perhaps aware that a tiger is about but how can they know where the attack will come from [Music] [Music] in the dawn light a baby deer pines for its mother the smell of death attracts two thieves to her corpse the tigress has gone to collect her cubs and the deer carcass has been found by hungry scavengers still warm her flesh is firm and spongy the tiger and her cubs would feed on this carcass for several days decayed flesh to their taste and easier to tear apart defeated by the fresh carcass the young boss idles around its mother to find a way in the soft rump is perfect the tigress arrives ahead of her cubs protectively cautious she needs to give the greedy wild boar no warning but not even they would challenge the swamp tiger just her presence arouses fear [Music] [Applause] [Music] she chased off the wild boar and the Cubs were not far behind but this is really really amazing because my height is the lowest it's it's been so far just above the water and she could smell me the bold location of the second hide has paid off but I think that she was getting used to my smell she was actually getting used to me being there although she didn't like me being there she was actually quite quite oaky about it today her Cubs will have full bellies but raising three growing Tigers to maturity will take over two years they still need their mother it will be another eight months before they can hunt their own food by that time she will be exhausted the Cubs are now playful they need to feed often but their appetites are quickly satisfied she was growling away and I could see that she she wasn't really that happy with me being there she was just tolerating my presence she was definitely reacting to to me being there while she was growling I was pleased to see that she was distracted by something in the trees probably about I suppose if she was really determined she could have run the 25 metres or so to the hide but I never really thought she would do that and then she went off down to the creek and had a drink people have thought that Tigers do drink and the brackish waters in the creek but nobody's actually seen that before legend has it that drinking salt water altered these Tigers metabolism and turned them into man-eaters a theory that's never been proven in three or four days time this mother will need to kill again but the pressure on her hunting skill will eventually force the cut to try hunting alone suddenly something Mike hasn't bargained for a much bigger Tiger appears at the kill he has no idea what might happen it was a male and I felt a bit vulnerable I thought that it must have been a meal known to the female because she there was no reaction she was very relaxed about this meal coming in taking their cue from their mother the cubs hang back and watch in fact it may well have been the territorial meal or a very close relative of the female that had been a meal that she wasn't used to the Cubs would have run off and she would have stood our ground rogue males outsiders could even kill Cubs to bring the mother back into season this male is clearly no threat only a close blood relative would be tolerated at the family meal table could this tiger be the father of her cubs my curd is due to leave the Sunderbans for a month the first stage of his filming has been more successful than he could ever have imagined it's been an amazing place absolutely amazing have you seen just amazing okay separately over the old together whole together one family female MC cups have to go [Music] with Tigard numbers like this it's no wonder local fishermen are fearful there could be more Tigers here than anyone has ever imagined despite the dangers the poor from the north have no choice but to come here [Music] at dawn each day women trawl for shrimps defenseless in the shallow water against the tiger there have been 13 reported deaths in the last few months and many attacks go unreported despite up to a hundred people being killed by Tigers each year the landless poor pursue the riches of the Sunderbans season after season perilous for humans the rich debris-filled water makes this a flourishing nursery for fish and a paradise for birds fish fleeing from underwater predators are an easy target for egrets the paddy bird has to work harder to catch shrimps the rare masked Finn foot is a mangrove specialist superbly adapted to catching crabs the macaques have adapted well to this unique and dangerous world watching its mother closely the baby decides to try the same dish the macaques have learned to harvest the fruits of the mud banks seeking out the most delicate of mangrove seed pods with uncanny skill living in a muddy world seems to have made the macaques especially fastidious the pod is highly nutritious and full of protein even though the spotted deer can run faster than the tiger drinking at the waterside makes them very vulnerable if caught by surprise they must swim and tigers are quicker swimmers it's the one time the macaques need to be on their guard wild otters a different species from those corralled by the fishermen bark out a warning perhaps they can smell a hungry tiger [Music] you they retreat to the relative safety of the creek the Sunderbans are a series of ever shifting islands and to survive here all of the animals must be able to swim or fly from danger the tiger is king here in January the team returns to set up their next hide mike's confident he will film his family of four again I saw her this morning crossing a stream with three cubs I'm now heading this way so we just we don't want to lose her now we've got two different locations for the same clan in looking really good there are rumors of poachers or bandits in the area Mike is worried he can probably protect himself from Tigers humans are more dangerous and this hide leaves him very exposed yeah I don't know it wasn't me within you they are unsure who is shooting at them but they know there are tiger poachers in the Sunderbans and also illegal loggers and bandits obviously the presence of a film team for months at a time is inconvenient in the end they decide to make a quick exit it was unmistakably a warning dangerous at all times the team has been accompanied by an armed guard as a safety precaution but a show of strength the next day seems imperative the hide has been wrecked they've stolen planks and will cause more delay so just come and stole something planks and a red flag above the hide is set up as a crude warning and Mike goes back to work in spite of the danger at this stage mike is convinced he has cited the mother and three Cubs again the question is can he get the cameras in the right place a second time a colony of huge water monitor lizards some of them nine feet or almost three meters long have taken up residence on the beach a huge male is on guard there is a rigid pecking order and he is at the top another male wants to challenge him but how welcome is he likely to be you'll have to fight the dominant male to get a foothold here [Music] [Music] these lizards have razor-sharp jaws but the aim seems to be to squeeze each other into submission these reptilian Giants are extremely strong with powerful leg muscles they can easily outrun a human their tussles are more ritual than territorial one of the tactics is to wrestle the opponent to the ground they are fairly well matched inflating of the throat and body is designed to intimidate their rival other monitor lizards already know their place and keep their distance the newcomer has had just about enough he's on the lookout for a quick getaway no one else wants to take up the challenge it seems the fight is over and the resident male keeps his status intact but the defeated intruder survives unharmed to try his luck elsewhere [Music] surprisingly soon mics tigers have turned up again mother and three cubs as the season wears on the intensity of the heat becomes almost unbearable the monsoon is now just two months away but the humidity makes everyone uncomfortable now almost fully grown these Cubs will have to make their own way soon alone in preparation the Cubs are becoming bolder spending more time exploring the area away from their resting site as yet you are not taking risks one of the Cubs got a bit of a shock cling it's just a tree I think there must have been some scent left they still seem deeply involved with their mother signaling each time they wander off in return the long middle of the day stretches out for eight hot hours the temperatures reach more than a hundred degrees Fahrenheit or 40 Celsius with 95% humidity Tigers don't sweat but panting helps them keep their bodies in equilibrium every hide I made I always felt that I was getting closer and closer to the Tigers but this was the closest yet when I was that close I could hear them panting in the heat they were having a job keeping the temperature down as I was filming a jet flew over and just so typical of these animals anything that moves or makes a sound has to be checked out being so close to this family makes Mike question their identity I could also get a clearer view of the markings of this female and they were definitely different to the other animals I'd film it was then I realized that there were in fact two females with two different sets of Cubs on the side of her face a distinctive cross pattern tells Mike that what he is beginning to suspect is right this is another female with another set of three cubs [Music] the previous mother had totally different facial markings Mike realizes that the Cubs belonging to the first mother was smaller and he now knows he has filmed two families living next to each other on either side of a small creek it is totally unexpected [Music] yet the markings on this new females face make it impossible to ignore her cubs are several months older probably aged over a year no wonder they spend more time away from their mother catching hold of each other's heels they are already practicing to hunt alone the first rains come early clearing the air but adding to the humidity and lowering the temperature by a few degrees keen to follow the new family mike is unable to get to the hide once the rain set in for good it will be time to leave the Sunderbans the jungle will turn into an impenetrable swamp and become dangerous as the swirling monsoon waters pour through the channels to the bay at that time no one dares come here soon the Cubs must leave their mother and they are now hunting with her every day learning to catch their own food is now a priority it's not going to be easy they must get within 20 yards of the deer before making their final attack and the deer are alert success depends on patience and cunning foot stamping and upright tails show that the deer are aware of the tiger the mail camp is very determined as yet they don't know which direction he's coming from mother keeps a close eye if he makes a wrong move that she will step in seeing her chance the big tigress begins her final stalk but the youngster has blown it he's in too much of a hurry he couldn't wait [Music] there's nothing his mother can do now but the cub must learn fast soon he will be on his own he doesn't seem to understand quite how the deer got away soon she will give up feeding them and the Cubs will find their own way or not survive the females may stay quite near their mother's territory but the young male will eventually move far away from here in 18 months time she will have another litter to raise both females have proven to be skilled mothers to thriving families so close to one another is remarkable not only because of their mother's skill but evidence too of a strong protective male he has probably sired all six Cubs [Music] this is by far the most difficult expedition I've ever had I understood just how hostile the cinder bands could be to human being perhaps that's made them the most vital sanctuary on earth a refuge for the most thriving population of tigers on the planet maybe even the last when I left the Sunderbans this time I had a stronger attachment to this place than I've ever felt anywhere else and especially to the Tigers there is still so much to learn about these Tigers here that I'm sure I'd be back the Bangladeshis Sunderbans an alien world for humans the perfect haven for the most successful tiger population in the world [Music] [Music] [Music] you [Music] you

Channel: Free Documentary

Views: 3,344,211

Rating: 4.596561 out of 5

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full documentary, HD documentary, Tiger documentary, Shark documentary, Wildlife documentary, Documentary (TV Genre), Swamp Tiger, Animal documentary, Tiger, Tiger (Organism Classification), Bengal Tiger, royal bengal, Bengal Tiger (Organism Classification), bengal tiger documentary, Lion (Organism Classification), Lion Documentary, tigers documentary, wild tigers

Id: C8Q2ptLaFj0

Length: 50min 8sec (3008 seconds)

Published: Tue Feb 04 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/Spayorneuteryourvets]

Crazy that the guy's at ground level, just 25m away from a mama tiger and her cubs. He's brave.

[u/Smiff2]

Good stuff. Any news on how they are doing now 13 years later? Has he been back?

[u/Agente_Anaranjado]

Great documentary. I laughed out loud at this part.