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.     

Damocles Sword: Challenging the Conservation Ethos

License to Kill 

It hardly seems true that badly ravaged and plundered ecosystems in India support abundance of wildlife, anymore.  Well according to the government this is true somewhere in some States. Hence the permission for legal culling of  abundant species is on the table. 

Our five thousand year (plus) cultural heritage which boasts of conservation ethos ranging from the Vedas to the non violent concepts of preservation of life have proved to be ineffective as far as human greed for wealth, especially in the contemporary times whence economic prosperity is of greater concern.

The  malafide addition due legalising this murderous assault on species well below the sustenance level in India is giving rise to lust for killing. Though the honourable have reasoned that this is being done to protect crops from damage hence boost economic growth.      

Taking advantage of this largess, it is alleged that the lustful are killing with glee even in premises where hunting has not been legalised.  

Wildlife in India is already under severe survival stress from rabid industrial growth, resulting pollution, unchecked human settlements, unplanned urbanisation and rapid deforestation. Though we are discussing about the contemporary era, Indian ecosystems have been ravaged since thousands of years, more so since the beginning of the Raj. The wildlife has been continuously decimated resulting in critical existence of many species and extinction of some.        

Barely subdued, the lust for killing by the wildlife protection act and awareness, the legalization may renew the fervour of the big and small and open up new vistas of hunting illegally under the umbrella of the law.

To worsen the matter the demand for animal parts internationally is posing severe threat to rare species. Rampant poaching is taking place in this country in neglected areas not forgetting the sordid incidences in the protected areas during this decade.

The sharp retort from Menaka Gandhi (within the ruling government) who is erudite in matter of conservation took the environment ministry with surprise. Well "overzealous" is what the ministers and bureaucrats usually think of such reactions and most of the sane conservation voices are hence subdued.

It is for the people enmasse to react to every ill advised policy, especially if it is published with populist desires. Wildlife in India is doomed till saner policies and proactive protection measures are put in place. Public should come into picture before it is too late.