Status
Habitat
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Group
Three hundred kilograms that can vanish in ten metres of grass.
A tiger's stripes are not camouflage against grass. They are camouflage against *broken light* — the vertical shatter of sunlight through stems. Stand a tiger in an open field and it is unmissable. Move it two metres into cover and it stops existing.
Every tiger carries a unique stripe pattern, as individual as a fingerprint, which is how researchers census populations from camera traps without ever touching an animal. India holds roughly three quarters of the world's wild tigers, a recovery built on decades of unglamorous protected-area work.
To photograph one well is mostly to wait. The animal decides the frame. You only decide whether you are there when it does.
Frames in the archive
Full gallery
Broken Light
Kanha, last hour before the gates close.
