Want to See a Tiger? Let These Women Be Your Guides

Why this story matters: Amidst the constant noise of the modern world, it’s essential to pause and highlight the examples of human kindness and systemic progress that rarely receive the front-page attention they so richly deserve.

Quick summary: This story highlights recent developments related to women, showing how constructive action can lead to meaningful results.

It is dawn in Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in the western Indian state of Maharashtra. Most of the tourists waiting to start their safari have come to see a tiger. Instead, another sight catches their attention: women in khaki uniforms climbing aboard the jeeps.

“Everyone still stares when they see women wearing safari fatigues and leading tourists into the forest,” says Shahnaz Suleman Baig. “But it makes me proud.”

When Baig became one of Tadoba’s first female forest guides in 2015, few imagined women would thrive in a profession long dominated by men. “The male guides were against us joining, our community had never seen women stepping out to work and we ourselves wondered if we’d be able to succeed,” recalls Maya Jengathe, among the six women guides hired with Baig.

But unwittingly, the six women represented a solution to a problem that not many had really considered, says Prabhu Nath Shukla, the field director of Tadoba. “When women are excluded from safari professions, the forest department loses not only a rich pool of skilled local talent, but also the unique energy, warmth and communication style that they bring,” he adds.

Tadoba pioneered the recruitment of women guides in central India, and today, dozens of women guide safaris across the region (Tadoba alone has 52). More avenues opened up in 2018, when Pugdundee Safaris, one of India’s leading responsible safari companies, which has seven wildlife lodges in central India, started ProNat, a program for people interested in wildlife and conservation careers. Unlike other training programs run by safari companies mainly for their own staff, ProNat was, and remains, open to all young women (and men) aspiring to higher leadership careers in the jungle. Before this program began, entry into wildlife jobs in India was informal, with naturalists training on the job. As many believed that a naturalist’s job was more suited to men than women, it was not easy for young women to find a foothold. Today, over 270 alumni (of which 35 are women) work in the wildlife sector in national parks and tiger reserves across India.

“For women especially, this professional qualification has created a clear pathway into the wildlife sector,” Manav Khanduja, co- founder and director of Pugdundee Safaris, says. “Our alumni have gone on to become naturalists, make wildlife films, work in conservation, and even start their own wildlife travel companies.”

It is a far cry from when she started, Baig says, when it was easier to spot a tiger in the jungle than to see a woman leading a safari.

A weak monsoon sun shines low on the horizon in the jungles of Tadoba. Baig gets ready for safari in her uniform, a smart green shirt tucked into camouflage brown pants. The 44-year-old and her husband run a homestay together, and she is a forest-department-appointed guide. “I think I’ve loved the jungle since I was in my mother’s womb,” Baig says.

Around 2010, after a foreign visitor praised her knowledge of wildlife, Baig decided she wanted to become a guide. Five years later, she and five other women were appointed by the forest department.

“The department asked us to work in pairs and lead the safari trucks that seat 22 tourists. … We’d barely spoken to strangers before,” one of those women, Gayatri Whadai, says with a laugh. “My first safari was with Shahnaz [Baig], so I let her do all the talking.”

They faced many sticky situations. Whadai recalls the first time she came face-to-face with a tigress. “A boy in my jeep had dropped a plastic bag, I got off the jeep to pick up the trash and came face-to-face, eye-to-eye with her,” she recalls. “I stood still till the tigress disappeared in the forest, and my instinct was to make sure my guests were safe.”

Today, Baig, Jengathe and Whadai are all staunch advocates of more women entering their field. They say that they see a lot of interest in their profession.

About 270 miles away in Bandhavgarh in Madhya Pradesh, Ratna Singh, one of the earliest safari naturalists in central India, saw this same interest. So when she started training wildlife guides, first privately and then for the forest department, she made sure to take in local women who had completed primary education, but had no access to stable jobs. This was in 2010, and since then she has trained over 2,500 people, including 250 women.

Life in the jungle is hard, she says. She has encountered a tiger while fixing a flat tire, lived with a rat snake and cobra around her room (the cobra eventually ate the rat snake) and spent 12 hours a day, every day, on bumpy jungle tracks. “But it’s nothing that a fit woman can’t handle,” she says.

Twenty-six-year-old Suryanshi Thakur gets behind the wheel of a safari jeep with her guests in Bandhavgarh. People stop and stare at the sight of a petite woman driving a mammoth vehicle, especially as there is only one other woman naturalist in this tiger reserve. “Once in the forest, your gender ceases to matter,” the ProNat 2023 alumna says. “The only thing that matters is how well you interpret nature for your guests, how you’re able to make it come alive for them through your storytelling.”

About 100 miles away in Pench Tiger Reserve, naturalist Mokshada Mahajan takes guests to a hide (camouflaged shelter) near a body of water at Pugdundee’s Pench Tree Lodge. An alumna of ProNat’s 2025 cohort, her key takeaway from the course was: “You might know a lot about the jungle, but if you can’t present that knowledge in an interesting way to visitors, they won’t register a thing!”

Research supports this idea: effective storytelling helps listeners develop empathy, remember information and build emotional connections with places. “We tell our students that every safari is an opportunity to turn a simple guest into an ambassador for conservation, for wildlife,” Khanduja says. He finds that Pugdundee’s women naturalists seem to make guests more comfortable. This is especially true with solo women travelers and families with children, who, according to both Shukla and Khanduja, increasingly ask for women guides on repeat visits.

Mahajan says she enjoys interpreting wildlife for younger visitors. “Rather than focusing solely on the tiger,” she says, “I like to help children understand how insects, birds, plants and predators are connected within a functioning ecosystem.”

The idea of having more women on safaris is not limited to central India. In Botswana, the Chobe Game Lodge has had Africa’s first all-female guiding team, the Chobe Angels, since 2010. Their popularity with guests has inspired similar programs like the women-run Dunia Camp in Tanzania, while others, including African Bush Camps in Botswana, have committed to increasing women guides to 25 percent of their workforce. Chobe Lodge, like Pugdundee, has become a vital incubator. Of the approximately 100 female guides now working across Botswana, more than half began their careers with the Chobe Angels.

Feminizing the safari experience has hidden benefits, Singh says: “Women guides are better at following the rules; for instance, they’re less likely to veer off the designated paths just to follow or spot a tiger!” In Tadoba, Shukla concurs, adding that their presence forces “the men to behave better!” They are more polite and use better language (and fewer cuss words), he says, adding, “some even seem better groomed!”

For local women working as guides and naturalists, the sector offers a much-needed livelihood close to home, critical in a state where merely 32.6 percent of women have jobs and the prescribed minimum monthly wage for agricultural labor is Rs. 6,988 ($72 U.S.). Baig, Jengathe and Whadai earn up to $14 U.S. a day, and often double that in tips. “Over the years, my income has greatly helped my household — I’ve been able to send my children to a better school in Chandrapur and helped my family to build a house,” Jengathe says. Whadai has done the same, while Baig has put her monthly income into the homestay that she and her husband run.

“When women earn, their entire family flourishes,” Shukla says. “This has made many in the local villages change their views about women working.” When Singh recently conducted a wildlife leadership development program, some women attendees brought their children — and husbands to babysit them. “Really, there’s no freedom like financial independence,” she says. “When men here realize that as naturalists, their wives can earn over $500 U.S. a month — and up to double the amount in tips, which is a substantial income for people in this area — they tend to become keen supporters.”

That said, it will require a systemic transformation to bring women to the forefront of the wildlife sector, particularly in leadership positions. While the government forest guide training program is free, the ProNat program, priced at about $1,200 U.S., is not accessible to all. Also, the Pugdundee program can only be conducted in the low season (August to September) when the ecolodges have no guests.

In 2025, Baig received the Billy Arjan Singh Memorial Award for Best Wildlife Guide (West India). Dressed in a silk sari instead of her usual khaki fatigues and wearing a huge smile of delight, she accepted the award on behalf of her “five sisters” who started their journey as wildlife guides with her in 2015. She feels that they have kicked off a revolution. “So many little girls in our village now say they want to be like us when they grow up; so many young women come to us for advice on how to enter this profession,” she says. “It feels good.”

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