This very well-known tigress is T15, affectionately known as Collarwali. She was born in 2005, the daughter of Badi Mada, the Queen of Pench, mother of 19 cubs, and the famous aggressive tiger TI who earned the name Charger.
T15 and her siblings grew up in the media spotlight, having been stars of the Spy in the Jungle documentary series. She had her first litter, of three cubs, in 2008, and by 2017 she held what was believed to be the record for a wild tigress of 26 cubs in 7 litters, then increased that by having another three cubs in 2019. As she is a very attentive mother, and ferociously defends her cubs against attacks by male tigers, most of her cubs (apart from her first litter, who all died from pneumonia in a particularly harsh monsoon season) have survived until adulthood. She has certainly earned the inheritance of her title, Queen of Pench, from her mother. On 15th October 2020, The Wildlife India website published unconfirmed reports that she was pregnant again, although by then she had been pushed from her central territory within Pench to an outlying one.
Collarwali had been fitted while young with a radio collar, so that researchers could follow her movements. It stopped working after a while, but she still wore the collar, as in the photo, which was taken in 2015, when she was expecting her sixth litter (she gave birth to four cubs, two male and two female, less than two weeks later). In 2016, her collar fell off, but she could of course be recognised by her distinctive markings, as can every tiger.
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