Original subtitles

If you want to get close to a tiger, get an elephant.

But these elephants carry cameras

and with them they have recorded

the most intimate images of tigers ever seen.

In the last programme, they discovered a litter of four cubs.

We watched as their mother protected them from enemies.

We saw how she hunted to provide them with food.

Slowly they started to acquire the skills they needed for life in the forest.

But nothing had prepared them for the day

that a dangerous stranger arrived at their water hole.

The lives of the cubs are at risk.

Their mother isn't at the den and hasn't been seen for days.

A leopard is drinking from a water hole close by.

Leopards kill tiger cubs.

The cubs are now eight months old

and they could put up a real fight,

but a full-grown leopard is a formidable adversary.

Fortunately, it seems that all she wanted was a drink.

With the danger past,

the cubs have to deal with more routine problems.

What, for example, is the best way to get out of the den?

Not so difficult, after all.

Now is the time for play.

Keeping cool is a major preoccupation.

Damp sand in a shady spot is just the place to do so.

They urinate directly into the pool.

That conceals their scent from predators,

a particularly necessary precaution when mother is away.

The cubs are still nervous.

They daren't stray far from the den.

The crew with the camera-elephants

are becoming concerned about the mother's safety

and decide to go in search of her.

Methodically, they explore her territory

in the centre of Pench Tiger Reserve.

But it's an area of around 15 square kilometres

and within it she could be anywhere.

The elephants can get to almost any place that a tigress is likely to reach

and the cameras can be switched on the moment an animal is sighted.

But this is not what they were hoping to find,

another leopard.

A male this time, and not far from the cubs' den.

The Indian leopard is notoriously secretive and rarely seen.

But in Pench, they far outnumber tigers.

They're a real threat to any tiger cubs

that have lost the protection of their mother.

Despite the dangers, the cubs spend most of the day out of the den.

Being a foursome seems to give them confidence.

At this age, the two brothers and two sisters get on well together

and rarely squabble.

They've now been without food for many days

and they must be feeling very hungry.

And to make matters worse, their favourite prey appears nearby.

Cubs as young as this haven't a hope of catching such swift prey.

But there's no harm in trying.

It's a chance to try out some of the techniques

they learnt from watching their mother.

They're making all the right moves.

But they haven't got the patience.

Cubs have to go for long periods without food,

but if the mother doesn't return soon, they will rapidly lose condition.

The next day, the crew hear alarm calls from deer nearby.

That might mean there's a tiger around,

so the elephants set off to investigate.

As they close in on the calls,

the elephant-cams are switched on remotely.

Trunk-cam, the first on the scene, finds the tiger.

But it's not the cub's mother, it's a male.

If he's a stranger he might well kill the cubs.

Trunk-cam can film from either the elephant or on the ground.

And it moves even closer under its own power.

It's good news.

This is Charger, the cub's father and therefore their protector.

He gained his name from his habit of charging elephants.

But now he merely warns them off with a few growls.

A fearless father is exactly what the cubs need right now.

He will keep away any rival males who might harm them.

But the cubs' problems are by no means over.

Their mother has never left them for as long as this before.

Next day, the search for her continues.

The elephants separate and fan out across her territory.

Then, a breakthrough.

Fresh pugmarks, not far from her cubs.

Footprints can identify an individual tiger.

The mahouts who ride the elephants

say these look like the cubs' mother's.

They're certainly very fresh.

And there is a female tiger.

She's scent-marking,

which suggests that this is indeed her territory,

but only a closer view will confirm her identity.

She is the mother.

Why she left is a mystery.

The mahouts say that a strange male has been seen in the reserve

and think that she may have left to try and lure him away from the cubs.

The family is reunited.

Although leaving them was itself a risk,

it was probably the lesser of two evils.

Licking and grooming not only helps clean the cubs,

it gives them much needed reassurance.

The tigress has done a remarkable job in raising all four cubs,

but they're still very much at risk.

Half of all tiger cubs born

die before they are a year old from one cause or another.

The leopard is back.

Will she risk coming down for a drink

now that the tigress is back in residence?

She thinks better of it.

And then we see that the leopard has her own family to protect,

two five-month-old cubs.

She leads them away to a less dangerous part of the forest.

To record the lives of some of the other inhabitants of the forest,

the elephants use other kinds of spy-cams.

Log-cam can be put on the ground and left to operate by itself.

It will turn itself on whenever anything large moves in front of it.

Many of these cameras are placed around the tigress's territory

and carefully positioned.

Spotted deer are regularly caught by these candid cameras.

They're one of the favourite foods of tigers.

With hungry cubs to feed, the tigress must find a meal quickly.

But there are no deer nearby.

Now, as she searches for prey,

the cubs often travel with her.

That way she can visit distant parts of her territory

where the deer have not been hunted for some time,

so are less on their guard.

Spotted deer often share lookout duties with monkeys.

That suits both parties.

But at the water hole, it's different.

There, not every monkey is a friend.

Log-cam reveals that macaques actually chase deer away.

Even the biggest stags retreat.

With the deer having taken fright,

the macaques have to rely on their own surveillance skills.

A tiger spells danger.

Two tigers are clearly a terrifying sight.

And five must surely be every monkey's worst nightmare.

The spotted deer hear the commotion.

But the tigress is not particularly perturbed.

This old teak forest teems with life.

If she keeps moving, she'll get lots more chances.

Here there are plenty to choose from.

She's got one.

Tigers are generally said to succeed just one time out of 10.

But this tigress kills on average every third try.

She needs to be good.

Her cubs have already got huge appetites,

and by the time they leave her they will weigh eight times as much.

Even at this size,

each cub consumes around two kilos of meat at a single sitting.

The camera elephants take a bath every day.

They work for five hours at a stretch

and then the rest of the day is their own.

In the sweltering summer,

this daily ritual brings much needed relief from the heat.

The cubs also like a cooling dip.

But the pool by the den is not large

and when their mother joins in

things can get a little crowded.

In spite of the heat,

summer is a good time of year for some of the forest animals.

These are among the rarest,

sloth bears.

They only venture out during the day in the most secluded places,

but spy-cam was there to record them.

They're feasting on fallen fruit.

Wild boar are also partial to fruit.

Most animals fear sloth bears,

but not, apparently, wild boar.

At least, not when there's food around.

Although there is plenty for all,

it's sometimes necessary for the bears to show who's boss.

The bear cubs are working out where they stand in the pecking order.

They're aggressive creatures by nature

and will face down even the biggest predators.

But they must show no fear.

Even so, for the youngsters,

things sometimes get just too much and it's time to retreat.

The tigers have moved from their small and shrinking bath tub

to a more commodious bathing pool,

a reservoir built by the local people

that provides them with water throughout the year.

It's a great place to cool down.

The sambar deer are feeling the heat too.

The wild boar also enjoy a mud bath,

and combining a wallow with a meal just doubles the pleasure.

Mud bathing is clearly enjoyable,

but it also helps an animal to get rid of ticks

and other skin parasites.

Tigers are one of the few cats that actually enjoy swimming

and they usually pick den sites close to water.

As they travel around their territories during the summer,

they move as quickly as possible through the drier parts

to get to the hunting grounds that have good bathing pools.

As June comes to an end, the heat becomes really hard to bear.

Midday temperatures can reach 45 degrees in the shade.

But after a bathe, the water evaporating from the fur

cools the body and brings enough relief for the animal to snooze.

When the monsoon finally arrives

it's not a moment too soon.

As well as bringing a welcome drop in temperature,

the rains replenish the park's damns and pools.

There is greenery everywhere.

The giant two-metre webs of golden orb spiders hang between the trees.

These are the biggest spiders' webs in the world.

Their silken guy-ropes sometimes stretch across six-metre gaps.

The elephants are bound to barge through them.

The spiders themselves have a span as wide as a human hand.

But they are of no consequence to an elephant.

Their web is strong enough to catch a small bird,

but the spiders in fact feed only on insects.

The cubs are just over a year old,

and they have an appetite to match their size.

But there has been a significant change in their behaviour.

Their play now includes mock hunting

with mother serving as a target.

This is stylised fighting.

It looks dangerously aggressive,

but the cubs keep their claws fully sheathed throughout.

Mother never takes part in their fighting games,

but indulgently tolerates the cubs' boisterous behaviour.

They spend a lot of time travelling.

Five nearly full-sized tigers on the move together

is a rare sight indeed.

They are a formidable force.

Nothing stays around to challenge them.

Even though it's now cooler,

they still bathe at the hottest part of the day.

Water is difficult to resist.

The cubs take no notice whatever of the elephants,

so it's possible to get really intimate shots

from the camera held in the trunk.

Progress through the forest is slow,

because they linger at almost every pool or stream.

They're not alone in relishing the abundance of water.

The langur monkeys and their babies

seem to have not a care in the world.

But for some babies, drinking isn't the most comfortable of times.

Unlike macaques, langurs are the friends of spotted deer.

They share the task of keeping a lookout for their greatest enemy.

The time has come for the tigress to make a determined hunt.

One of her cubs decides to go with her to get some personal tuition.

The tigress doesn't need to look far for a meal.

She is one of the most productive parts of her territory.

She hasn't been here for some time,

so she has more chance of catching her prey off guard.

The lush undergrowth gives her plenty of cover.

Her prey seem quite unconcerned.

But not for long.

The cub has still to learn that this sort of behaviour

is not what is needed when mother is trying to hunt.

The langur sends a warning far and wide.

But still the cub doesn't calm down.

The cub is now testing his mother's patience to the limit.

She warns him that enough is enough.

The rest of the cubs are content to wait until she's caught something.

That shows just how well-fed they are.

Her prey soon relax.

The pools are beginning to dry.

Gaur, the rare wild Indian cattle,

are big enough to push most others drinkers out of the way.

Spotted deer are given their marching orders

by the more dominant sambar deer.

The mother makes another start.

But she'll have to get rid of her over-enthusiastic cub.

This time, he gets the message.

The cub is beginning to understand

his mother's changing demeanour.

Every posture has a special meaning.

When she has a target in her sights,

nothing will break her concentration.

She has taken her prey completely by surprise.

She brings it down.

It's a sambar deer.

She partially throttles her victim,

but doesn't kill it.

She will use this one to give a lesson to her cub.

The mother leaves him to get on with it.

But he is not quite sure what to do.

The throttle hold is one of the most important things he has to learn

and he's making a good start.

Giving half-killed prey to a cub like this

seems heart-breakingly cruel

but learning to deal with live prey is a vital step

on the path to becoming an independent hunter.

The mother has returned to find the other cubs.

She can remember exactly where she left them

and they greet her with head butts,

a gesture that is used by many cats, large and small.

The chase took her a long way from her cubs,

but she knows the forest so well

that she's able to lead them directly back to the kill

by the shortest possible route.

The cub meanwhile is making the most of having the kill to himself.

By the time his brother and sisters arrive

he's starting to feel it's his.

The cubs are beginning now and then

to be aggressive towards one another,

particularly when there is food around.

As the newcomers wait their turn,

they dispel their frustration with a game of chase.

The cub pulls the carcass into the shade of a lantana bush

and things start to calm down.

While the cubs relax, the elephants leave them

and set off to look for other tigers.

There are reports that the cubs' father, Charger,

is back in the neighbourhood.

Trunk-cam spots him first

and discovers that he has made an extraordinary kill.

The high view from elephant-back reveals just what he's eating.

A sloth bear.

Killing a sloth bear shows just what a strong individual he is.

Bears are formidable animals

and have even been known to attack tigers.

The bear must have been difficult to kill

and plucking it certainly took some time

for the result looks like a rug on the forest floor.

Although Charger has not gone far away,

he rarely spends time with his family.

But his presence in the neighbourhood keeps away

young males looking for territory who might attack the cubs.

The male cubs are already becoming distinguishable from their sisters

by their more powerful build.

The male on the left has a broader head than his sister on the right.

Until now the cubs have behaved in a largely similar way.

Eventually, however, their paths will diverge.

The females will each take up a territory close to their mother.

But the males will move much farther away

to find, and if necessary fight for, territories of their own.

For now, however, brothers and sisters stick closely together.

They still have a lot to learn.

Both sexes have to know how to fight,

the females to protect themselves from unwanted advances,

the males to take or defend a territory.

And siblings make excellent sparring partners.

It looks violent, but it's quite disciplined

and no blood is ever drawn.

Fighting adults use exactly the same moves,

but with claws unsheathed,

and then the results from bouts like this can be fatal.

But paradise doesn't last forever.

There has been a disturbing report of a second adult male.

The cubs' play-fighting may soon need to be something far more serious.

Then, at the edge of the cubs' territory,

the strange male is spotted.

He's obviously not used to seeing elephants.

Tigers may travel more than 200 kilometres

looking for a place to establish a territory of their own.

Such a stranger will kill cubs if given half a chance.

The cubs are now big enough to put up a fight,

but having a strange male around

is nonetheless a worrying development.

Tigers often use dried-up riverbeds as roads through the jungle

and the family immediately detect

that another tiger has been using the same path.

The fact that it had sprayed so high

suggests that the visitor is a male.

The tigress puckers up her face

so that the scent passes over a specially sensitive organ

in her nose which enables her to analyse the smell.

Spraying enables all the tigers in the district

to be aware of one another's presence.

Prominent trees act as message boards

and an unfamiliar scent is quickly noticed,

so the family know that a stranger has arrived.

It's rare to see such an intense reaction.

The mother overlays the stranger's scent with her own

to make it clear that she's very much in residence.

In her eagerness to scent-mark, she gives the cub a face-full.

Every tree is scent-marked in turn.

The tigress leads her cubs up the riverbed

away from the area as fast as possible

but that is where the stranger went.

She could be leading them into danger.

There are scent marks even here.

With a strange male around,

the elephant crew check on Charger, the cubs' father.

He seems in good health,

although quite subdued for a tiger with such a reputation.

Then, on his side, signs that he has been in a fight.

His right flank shows puncture marks,

most likely made by the claws of a tiger.

He also seems uncharacteristically nervous.

The tigress and the cubs have moved far from the riverbed

and now have other things on their mind.

They have reached a part of the teak forest

where deer are particularly abundant.

This open woodland has some of the highest densities of prey in India.

The family is fortunate indeed to have it in their territory.

But with four energetic cubs to feed,

she really has to hunt at every opportunity,

otherwise they will start to lose condition.

The long grass allows her to get close very quickly

and without being seen.

As usual, the cubs are behaving in a boisterous way

that is bound to catch the attention of the deer.

They seem to have forgotten that their mother's trying to hunt.

But unknowingly, the cubs are acting as excellent decoys,

deflecting the deer's attention away from their mother.

She still hasn't been seen.

For once, the cubs' games are a help.

The deer just don't know how many tigers there are around.

At last their mother is within range.

She's got one. It's a sambar.

Time and again she picks these out.

They're bigger than spotted deer and therefore make more of a meal.

She doesn't need to call her cubs.

They saw what happened and immediately stopped playing.

She makes a half-hearted attempt to conceal the body

to hide it from vultures and other scavengers.

Clearly she's intending to leave it.

She must have killed this one just for her cubs.

The first on the carcass is one of the females

and she immediately takes possession.

Once again there is a chance to practise what is needed to be a hunter.

The later arrivals are at a disadvantage.

Finders is keepers.

The tigress strolls away to take a rest after all that exertion.

She's proving to be a very remarkable mother,

able to kill so easily that she herself doesn't need to feed

at many of her kills.

Her daughter is behaving as if she's killing the deer all over again.

Her sister and brothers seem content to sit it out,

and she makes sure they realise whose prize it is.

Opening such a big carcass is not easy on your own,

so soon she lets one of her brothers join her.

Rivalry disappears as together they struggle to cut through the deer's tough hide.

After a day full of action, the elephants take a break.

But the next morning the tigers have disappeared.

It's three days before the elephants find them again.

They are some distance away from where they were last seen

and moving very purposefully.

The elephants must travel fast to keep up,

although that doesn't prevent them from snacking on the move.

All the cubs are here.

But there's no sign of the mother

and it's unusual for them to move so far without her.

As the elephants get closer to them,

there seems little to be concerned about.

The cubs are still in a playful mood.

The next day breaks with a deceptive calm.

When the cubs are found, they're still alone.

They have arrived at one of the park's dams,

a favourite source of fresh water for much of the year.

These dams, scattered throughout the park,

are invaluable in the drier months.

Even at this time of year, tigers find them irresistible.

As usual, the cubs use them as lavatories,

so concealing the signs that might reveal

their presence to another tiger.

With their mother absent, they are very vulnerable.

They find a toy, a log,

but their play is rather subdued.

When their mother's not around,

the cubs behave very differently.

They're quieter and far less confident.

They avoid deliberately drawing attention to themselves

and usually stay in the same place.

The fact that they're still on the move

suggests that they have been disturbed.

It's three days since the mother was last seen.

The elephants begin another search for her.

Like the tigers, the wild game in the park is totally undisturbed

by the presence of the elephants.

In spite of their great size, they can be surprisingly quiet.

The elephants are accepted as just another harmless inhabitant of the forest.

But some creatures here are far from harmless.

A strange male has been sighted again.

He's a young tiger who's probably looking for a territory of his own.

The cubs are not far away, and they seem to have picked up the male's scent.

With Charger injured, the intruder is probably confident enough

to leave his own mark.

This is a dangerous situation for the cubs,

for their mother is nowhere to be seen.

The elephants set out once again

to see if they can find the cubs' mother.

At last, they discover her at one of her old den-sites.

This is very reassuring.

But something seems wrong.

She is unusually subdued.

Then we find out why.

She has a wound in her chest that is obviously causing her some distress.

Such a cut could have been caused by the horns of her prey

or from a fight with another tiger.

It's fresh and obviously a serious injury.

She's in a bad way and desperately needs rest.

This explains why she left her cubs alone.

The cubs are still on the move

and they've reached the dammed river in the centre of the park.

Cubs rarely wander far from where their mother left them,

but, perhaps realising that they're now very much on their own,

they seem anxious to keep moving.

They're still too young to survive without their mother,

so their future will depend on her making a quick recovery.

They do everything they can to avoid being detected.

But it's all in vain.

The strange male has appeared not far from where the cubs found scent marks.

This is too close for comfort.

Their only option

is to put as much distance between them and him as possible.

The cubs have survived against the odds,

but now they're in great danger.

With both parents injured and a rogue male on the loose,

they will need a miracle to pull through.

In the next Spy in the Jungle we will find out if their luck holds.