Tyger Tyger, Burning Bright

“Tyger Tyger, burning bright,  In the forests of the night”

I just couldn’t help myself but write these beautiful lines by Blake seeing how aptly they fit the photo.

This photograph of Vijay, the leucistic Bengal tiger, is very close to my heart. It's one of the first wildlife photographs I ever took, when I was just getting to know my way around a camera. I took this shot during my very first internship at the National Zoological Park, Delhi. It was during this internship that I decided I wanted to be a full-time wildlife biologist and also help make people conscious towards conservation biology for the rest of my life.

Vijay, like other leucistic species, has a mutation in the gene responsible for producing pigment for body colouration and hence lacks the ability to camouflage and survive in the wild. Still, overlooking all these facts, Vijay embraced his life, after all, his name literally does mean ‘victory’.

The first collector of this 1/1 will also receive a physical frame.