A Bengal tigress called Sita rests with one of her trio of six-month-old cubs.
Named after a Hindu goddess, Sita was admired by visitors to India's Bandhavgarh National Park for her keen hunting skills and fierce devotion to her young. Conservationists valued her prolific breeding; during her life she bolstered the local population with six litters.
Poachers are believed to have killed Sita in 2000.
(Text adapted from and photograph shot on assignment for, but not published in, "Making Room for Wild Tigers," December 1997, National Geographic magazine)
