Status Report 2018: Increasing Tiger Population in India

Count - 2018 Year--- 2967 Tigers

After a grind of many years, India finally experiences a meaningful increase in its tiger population. This is heartening after a dismal status that could have been well below fourteen hundred at the start of the Project Tiger Program in the seventies. The report is credible since a more scientific approach has been resorted to using diverse techniques including the camera traps.

A larger area has been brought under the scanner unearthing small unheard populations of the carnivore. The major benefit of this exercise of counting tigers is the unfolding of challenges in various or diverse landscapes. People's conservation efforts which come naturally due to traditional beliefs, myths, and ethos come to light thus a converging pool of conservation practices along with emerging scientific management principles. This ends up enhancing conservation logic and creating a consensus that helps put it into practice to save the tiger more effectively.  

Another factor that lends credibility to the report is the lack of fudging that went on in the past with some FDs exiting the management with a figure that was higher than before. This was farcical, and the population of the big cat in India was zooming well beyond its carrying capacity. This also showed the prerogative of the higher-ups and how easy was it to fudge.

Like the balloon that bursts whence a small pinprick, the truth came tumbling down after the debacle at Sariska and Panna National Parks two of the most prestigious tiger conservation units in India. 

From thirty-plus tigers within a short period, there were no tigers at all...all had been poached with extreme ease and comfort, and that too with the connivance of some forest officials as the newspapers reported. To counter the blame.. committees and inquiry commission all were set up more to whitewash the shameful than to find the truth. In our country, all horrific events eventually die down to be forgotten or to be sunk in ever delaying legal procedures and hordes of paper.  

Thankfully these events did not die down completely for it was the survival of one of the most charismatic species at stake, and India was at the forefront. But the most empowering factor was that India's prestige was at stake..the National Pride. The whole World looks at us as to what we are doing with our tigers.  

A comprehensive conservation model, ever-evolving was needed in the country, and thanks to concern and dedication we have been successful to a great extent in the cause. 

The debacle that happened at Sariska and Panna made it evident that India at that stage was ill-prepared to save the vanishing species ...the critically endangered tiger. 

The initiation of Project Tiger following the Wildlife Protection Act and the creation of Protected Areas with inviolate core lulled the management with complacency bolstered beyond reasoning by yearly fudging thus falsely increasing tiger numbers albeit only on paper year by year. 

Let us be honest fudging did not take place everywhere, the bloated figures were also due to the age-old methodology of counting the big cats. Many tiger reserves were in a nascent stage at that time and the conservation efforts then were lacking perhaps due to inexperience or lack of funds.        

Lets us say that tiger conservation in those days was in its infancy which was very true for the predator needed macro solutions and not many biological insights for its survival but the answers or solutions were not there at that time and if they did unfold the process was painstakingly slow. 

In the midst of the conservation efforts were some of our finest wildlife managers, and the dedicated staff in the reserves. International assistance also aided the conservation efforts. Institutes like WWF for Nature, WWI Dehradun, and a plethora of National and local conservation bodies now play an immense role in saving this beleaguered species.    

Space is a constraining factor with the human population bursting beyond the seam and dire economic challenge, an increasing tiger population is not an assurance of the animal's survival a Damocles Sword will always hang on the predator's head. 

Numbers though comforting and the increase much needed, survival of the tiger would always depend upon many factors and those constantly emerging...political will and conservation efforts being of utmost importance. 

Population dynamics in relation to the environment, humans, and our attitudes and policies will always be in a state of flux with population increase. The changing landscape and the encompassing environment will throw many new challenges and problems for saving the big cat. Are we prepared and well-focused?  Are we proactive enough?     

All that we do as a Nation, as a society, and even as individuals will have an impact on the survival quotient of the tiger.      

Tiger Status Report 2018

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Uday works as a naturalist in India and writes on tigers and their conservation.
Contact: pateluday90@hotmail.com
9755089323

Tiger Conservation - A Number Game

Tigers are elusive animals and amazingly apt at being unseen even whence in the vicinity. Their habitat preference aids in camouflage, an art that they have mastered anyway, and a structure along with enchanting color patterns makes the big cats practically invisible wherever they live.

The predator can sit or stay still for an amazingly long period, crouch low in small tufts of grass and walk silently unheard, even whence in proximity. It has an amazing ability to freeze and stay that way for an exasperating time span. The animal can virtually vanish at will from the human reckoning.   

I believe many tigers complete their life cycle and die without being seen or being recorded by the tiger counting mechanism or the field personnel. This also assures that the predators occupy a wider tiger landscape than we assume. The ghost of the darkness is an apt way to describe the magnificent beast for it is a nocturnal animal made so by necessity and to some extent by massive human intrusion everywhere they survive.        

In democracies, life forms that vote are the privileged ones, and hence others are always endangered or facing extinction eternally. The situation is not good in countries that are governed by autocratic or dogmatic beliefs as well. In fact, the tertiary predator is nowhere safe.      

Counting The Cat 

Earlier the cats in India and Russia were counted using only the pug mark method. This resulted in greatly exaggerated figures leading to a chancy complacency that was disastrous for conservation. With the advent of more scientific methods like camera trapping and DNA analysis, we are coming to more accurate figures plus and minus a few. This development has also led to the discovery of tigers elsewhere outside the protected areas in previously undocumented tiger landscapes. But do these exciting finds assure that the population in India is rising? 

Well Yes & No

The Tiger population is well managed in highly protected reserves it is rising there thanks to the efficiency of the staff, wildlife managers, and the political will prevalent generously to say so. On the other hand, there may be many habitats where the animal is still being persecuted leading to a reduction in numbers. Man-animal conflict, hunting, and poaching are still the factors instrumental in the critical status of the big cat. And yes, I have not forgotten the tremendous biotic and abiotic stress that modern man is imposing. 

Crown cover of most of the landscapes may be receding drastically hence habitat destruction is an ever going disaster in a heavily populated country like India. Dams, mines, and infrastructure projects are never going to see an end, hence the threat will prevail unchecked ever. 

With a virulent stress on development or rather unplanned rapid development that always takes place in haste to be repented at leisure.     

Tigress - Paul Diggins

A Nation hell-bent under prioritize, the beleaguered cat has no place on the list.        

Whence we count the big cats we have only one species in mind this is a gross miscalculation. There may be no more than fifty South China tigers in the wild as per reports. The Tigers have gone virtually extinct in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. We have lost the Bali tiger in Indonesia, the Caspian, and the Javan. 

Around three hundred Siberian tigers survive in a small pocket, precariously under severe threat from poachers. India is the country that is home to the Bengal tiger with the largest number standing at more than half the global population. This species also survives in Nepal, Burma, and Bangladesh. The last figures registered an appreciable growth of around thirty percent let's see if it stays that way. The country is doing all that is possible to protect the carnivore in its protected areas.           

The drastic reduction in the habitat is the primary reason for the sad numbers of animals almost everywhere,  and this threat does not seem to be mitigating. Of the roughly seven percent of the habitat left, the threat of denudation, wood logging, and human pressure looms large. The animal needs vast space to survive. Are we willing to accord that do we have a policy which would enable increase the inviolate space badly required?

The populist governance prevailing in the country is incapable of doing this, containment will linger. The hopeless case of tiger corridors is evident so very much. This is due to a lack of political courage. We have rapaciously taken over all the land for our cause without generously allocating some for other life forms. There seems to be no hope regarding this, and it seems to be wishful thinking and may seem ludicrous to some.       

The largest and single most threat that looms precariously is the use of tiger parts in Chinese systems of medicine and not to forget the culinary preferences. There seems to be no encouragement that the CITES convention would ever be followed there.      

Albeit the picture seems like a doomsday prediction there is hope for the tiger at least in India. All it needs is stringent protection, political will, and apt management. We must not forget laws that govern illegal practices regarding wildlife...these need a paradigm change if poachers and hunters have to be discouraged effectively.     

Latest Tiger Census - 2014

Tigers Mating by Dharmagiri at Pench

It is in the news the latest figures about tiger numbers in India. According to census conducted by Indian Government there are 2226 tigers in India. This constitutes seventy percent of the tiger population of the World.

In the year 2010 the population was little above 1700 and much below before that. The figures are encouraging especially since more scientific approach has been used. 

The big cat has a long way to go since the numbers do not extract it out of the endangered status. The rise in population could also be due to tigers discovered in areas hitherto unknown. But better managed reserves have definitely contributed to the increase.       

But what is discouraging is the ministers view that our big cats can be shared with other countries. This is nowhere advisable and the best that can be done is to trans locate the animals to protected areas with less or no tigers.

There are many neglected reserves in this country with decreasing population. At many places local factors like poaching, disease and habit destruction is making the majestic animal extinct. 

A new approach to census should be put in place with population of each and every reserve made open to public. This is a pertinent approach which will also put to pressure weak management and expose local problems.  

Bengal Tigers in India

News Article on Bengal Tigers

Status of Tigers in India in the National Geographic Magazine. The latest tiger census figure have been released by the Project Tiger Directorate in New Delhi.

The falling numbers of tiger population is alarming and if poaching, habitat and disease are not curbed immediately than the tiger has a bleak future. The latest statistics show the tiger numbers at 1411 which is half what it was few years back. At the turn of the 20th century there were 40,000 tigers in India. Poaching for bones and habitat destruction is the major reason for the fall in the population of Bengal tiger in India. The major demand for tiger parts and fur are from Nepal, Tibet and China. The mafia engaged in tiger poaching has to be dealt severely.