PREVIEW

AssetID: 31562238

Headline: Tigers Cool Down In Hot Indian Weather

Caption: Think it's hot this week - a wildlife photographer snapped tigers cooling down in near 50C temperatures recently. Wimbledon-based Paul Goldstein says it was "ferociously hot" in India when he shot Bengal tigers taking refuge in water. The guide for Exodus Travels says he has visited the country many times but always avoided the "absurdly hot" month of May. He says: "Tigers like to cool down in lakes and streams and seeing this several times across ten days was pretty close to the Holy Grail of sightings. "Seeing them in May was magnificent. When it is this hot you can generally rely on locating them around water but they are often obscured or not remotely photogenic. This year in Tadoba and Bandhavgarh it was anything but. These alpha predators have nothing to fear from water and are aquatic as well as land animals, being competent swimmers. A passionate wildlife campaigner, Paul explains: "Animals like Maya in Tadoba and Spotty are priceless, literally. These are females with successful litters, animals that could possibly raise four or five families. Dead on the ground, they are worth $30,000 to the poacher and those insidious individuals above them, in this despicably infected food chain. Alive, with all ancillary benefits calculated they could be worth as much as $50m. So if anyone out there this evening is sitting down to a bowl of tiger penis soup I hope they bear these figures in mind, before they dip their spoons into their tainted broth. In 30 years of watching wildlife there is no species that excites or upsets me more than the tiger. Looking down binoculars or lens at this majestic creature is a reward hopefully not about to become extinct." Paul guides for adventure travel specialists Exodus (www.exodus.co.uk). He has run 13 marathons in a tiger suit and raised in excess of £150,000.

Keywords:

PersonInImage: