On a jeep safari in a jungle in India, suddenly you become excited seeing from a distance a big black furry ball on the road, coming towards your jeep. This cuddly black ball is nothing but a sloth bear, which is considered a rare sighting in Indian jungles.
Widely recognized as a nocturnal animal, sloth bear sightings in their natural habitat are considered one of the rarest and a reward for a nature tourist.
Why sloth bears are wildly underrated
The reason why sloth bears are wildly underrated is their rare sightings and the fact that they are difficult to track. Unlike tigers, sloth bears cannot be tracked by the alarm calls of different animals. The only way to track a sloth bear is by their pugmark, which they leave on dirt roads, like tigers and leopards, but once they go into the bushes, they are very difficult to find.
Unlike tigers, they keep their body profile low with their head down looking for insects and termites. They are black so they can easily mix with the surrounding vegetation also. When sloth bears eat, they create loud, continuous slurping, sucking, and vacuum-like noise, which indicates their presence to an alert naturalist.
Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary — India’s first Sloth Bear Sanctuary·
Due to our commitment to saving our unique wildlife, a sanctuary has been created for sloth bears in the Karnataka state of South India. Earlier it was known as Bilikallu Reserve Forest, but the government changed its name to Daroji Sloth Bear Sanctuary in 1994. The landscape in the sanctuary is perfect for the bears with many rocks and boulders with sparse scrub vegetation.
The Daroji sloth bear sanctuary is the first sanctuary for the sloth bears. The sanctuary is spread over 82.7 sq. km of area. Bears are usually seen from the Machan, which is set up in the evening when they are active. Apart from bears, the sanctuary is also home to striped hyenas, wild boars, pangolins, porcupines, leopards, and jackals. The sanctuary boasts an impressive bird life, with over 70 documented species.
A drive through the jungle gives you an opportunity to spot various unique species of birds such as the painted spurfowl, sand grouse, yellow-throated bulbul, peafowl, and stone curlews.
Inside the sanctuary, there is a watchtower, which is the perfect spot to watch animals and birds safely and without disturbing them. According to an estimate, this small sanctuary supports more than 150 sloth bears.
The sanctuary is located just 15 kms from the UNESCO world heritage site of Hampi, which is known for its historical monuments and group of temples that belong to the last Hindu kingdom of South India, the Vijayanagaram empire. Hampi is a wonderful attraction for the tourists visiting India for a cultural and historical tour.
The best time to visit the sanctuary is during the monsoon or post-monsoon seasons, as summers arrive early in March and can be very hot, with temperatures exceeding 40 degrees Celsius, which is unbearable due to the lack of shade and dense vegetation.
Rocks and boulders maximize the effect of heat. Post-monsoon the landscape transforms from deciduous thorn and scrub forests to lush green forest, and this period is the time when animals start moving during the daytime as well. Monsoons arrive here during June and last until October.
Inside the sanctuary there is an area called the ‘sweet lick,’ where the forest department smears honey on rocks and boulders, which attracts the bears of the area. When the bears come out and lick the honey, they produce a slurping sound that someone can hear from more than 100 meters.
After licking the honey, they go to the nearest water hole, and after drinking, they go for rest, like all their other relatives. During my last visit I spotted a mother with her cub on this sweet lick site, apart from other bears. It was an intriguing encounter that I remember throughout my life.
Satpura: Bear + Leopard + Dhole +Tiger in one forest
When we talk about sloth bears, the best place to see them, apart from the bear sanctuaries, is Satpura Tiger Reserve. This tiger reserve is situated in Central India and is one of the most convenient tiger forests to reach from the nearest airport or railway station.
Bhopal, the capital city of Madhya Pradesh, the tiger state of India, is only 2-3 hours away from the reserve. Being a capital, Bhopal is very well connected to all the major cities of India by air as well as train and road.
The reserve is very big, with a total area including the core and buffer of around 2,133 sq km, making it the largest tiger reserve of Madhya Pradesh. The landscape of the reserve is mostly hilly and rocky, which is a favorite habitat of the sloth bears and leopards. This type of habitat provides them the place to hide from tigers.
Nowadays, because of effort from the forest department, the tiger population has increased in Satpura, which resulted in more tiger sightings and fewer sightings of leopards, but still, the sloth bear sighting is very frequent, as are the tiger and sloth bear; they are almost equal in strength and avoid each other, sharing space in the same habitat.
Apart from tigers, leopards, and bears, the reserve is well known for its wild dog sightings in a big pack. My last visit I spotted bears and tigers on each safari and wild dogs on two, and for leopards I had bad luck in the core zone but spotted one in the buffer zone.
This reserve is also famous for its giant squirrel sightings and it is probably the best place in Central India for seeing this big and beautiful squirrel. If you enter the reserve from Bori Wildlife Sanctuary, which is a part of the tiger reserve, you might get the flying squirrel after coming back from your evening safari at the entry gate. On each exit in the evening, I spotted this squirrel at a fixed time so that you could make a video of it gliding from one tree to the next.
You can plan your visit to the Satpura Tiger Reserve from October to June, but the best time is November to March, when the weather is pleasant. Try to stay at both sides, Bori Wildlife Sanctuary and Satpura National Park, to cover most of the tourism zone. Also make a day visit to Pachmarhi, which is the only hill station of Central India; this place is famous for its unique flora, like insectivorous plants, and for birds.
There are places in the reserve where you can see rock paintings done by prehistoric man. Satpura is very well connected with Pench Tiger Reserve, which is 4-5 hours from here.
The behavior of bears varies by month, particularly in relation to feeding on termite mounds and the mahua flower season.
Bear loves termites, honey, and Mahua flowers. Termites are generally in abundance during monsoon and post-monsoon while mahua flowers are very sweet and are a favorite of not only bears but other wild animals too, like monkeys and deer.
April is the season when flowering occurs in Mahua. During Mahua season, sloth bears frequently visit the mahua tree, often in villages, as well as when they come into conflict with humans. During the season of Mahua, one can observe bears feeding on the flowers dropped on the ground.
What time of day are bears most active?
In the hot summer months, the bears are mostly nocturnal or active at dusk and dawn. The availability of resources also influences their activity pattern.
Understanding bear behavior at close range is essential for your safety.
Bears are one of the most dangerous animals of Indian forests. There are more bear attack cases than tigers or leopards. They are shortsighted, so they usually attack anything that they cannot recognize.
A mother bear can be particularly dangerous when she is with her cubs, as she may also attack tigers during that time. If you find yourself in a bear forest, it’s always advisable to remain vigilant and refrain from disembarking from the safari vehicle.
Photography challenges:
I believe the challenge of photography with bears lies in their black fur; when taking pictures in auto mode, the camera often adjusts to low light conditions, resulting in a low shutter speed and a large aperture, which can make a moving subject appear slightly hazy. If you encounter a bear, switch to manual mode and focus on its nose or eyes, which lack black fur.
