The grasslands where chital deer thrived were being put to the plow; the forests where sambar and gaur made their home were being logged at an unprecedented rate and drained of their biodiversity; the local people, who had lived sustainably alongside these places for millennia, were suddenly deprived of much of their livelihood and forced to sneak into the forest at night like bandits, stealing animal fodder and poaching game. Of course something was bound to give, not just with tigers, but with predators in general. And indeed, it did.
