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February 26, 2008
India was regarded as a success story of tiger and tiger habitat conservation and comeback during the 1970s and 1980s, under the vigilance of Indira and Rajiv Gandhi. Now, an incomplete census suggests a shocking result: is the country really down to its last thousand and a half tigers? What happened?
Only 1,411 tigers left in protected forests in India
12 Feb 2008
New Delhi—India has only 1,411 tigers in its protected forests, less than half the numbers in 2001–2002, according to official figures released Tuesday. The latest estimates of the National Tiger Conservation Authority says that according to its latest census, India's tiger population in the wild ranges between 1,165 and 1,657—with the average working out at 1,411.
India had 3,642 tigers in 2001-2002, according to an earlier census of the animals in national reserve forests or protected parks.
The latest assessment shows that though the tiger has suffered due to poaching, loss of quality habitat and loss of its prey, there is still hope, Rajesh Gopal, secretary of the Tiger Project, said at a press briefing.
He said the Indian government has announced it would be setting up eight new tiger reserves. An area of over 30,000 square kilomectres of tiger habitat had been identified and funds set aside for the project.
Gopal also said the method for counting tigers has been refined using pugmarks (footprints) and involving independent experts, and there is now a higher degree of confidence in the results.
The latest census found that central Madhya Pradesh state had the highest number of tigers, an estimated 300, followed by southern Karnataka with 290 and northern Uttarakhand with 178.
Three important tiger habitats were left out of the census and work was currently ongoing to count the big cats in eastern West Bengal state's Sundarbans mangrove forest.
The census could not be carried out in the eastern Jharkhand and central Chhattisgarh states due to the presence of Maoist rebels.
Can there be a silver lining to such frightening numbers? K. Ullas Karanth thinks so. The director of the Centre for Wildlife Studies at the Wildlife Conservation Society of Bangalore, Karanth writes that, first of all, as yet uncounted tigers in the areas mentioned above should bring the total to more than 2000. Second, it is not possible to say with confidence that there are only half as many tigers as there were six years ago, because this is the first census carried out with state-of-the-art methods and international standards of accuracy. And finally, Karanth says, the numbers should regalvanize conservation efforts, which can finally be placed on a scientific footing:
The National Tiger Conservation Authority-Wildlife Institute of India report signals a decisive shift away from the past unscientific practice trying to “census” wildlife populations to a more global standard based on statistical sampling. It reaffirms what tiger biologists have known for years: tigers, particularly their reproducing populations, are now virtually restricted to protected areas that constitute less than 4 per cent of our land. . . . These remaining protected tiger refuges can't survive any more intensified human uses. . . .
It is clear from the report itself that tigers are in deep trouble across of much of the region, including many protected tiger reserves. . . .
Where do we go from here? Obviously, our remaining core tiger populations need to be monitored intensively every year as has been demonstrated by our centre in working in association with Karnataka Forest Department for two decades. The NTCA-WII survey that involved the entire country, required 500,000 man-days of effort at a cost to the tax-payer of Rs 13 crore [A crore is ten million, so that would be 130 million rupees], cannot be a practical future monitoring solution.
I strongly believe that developing new partnerships with qualified scientists who can bring in skills, manpower and resources from outside the government sector should be the next step. This will bring greater transparency to the national efforts to save our biological and economic assets that lie unnoticed under the tiger's umbrella. Whether the government can now draw on its dwindling reservoir of political will to establish a genuine science-driven, public-private partnership to monitor the fate of wild India remains to be seen. I hope it can.
(Annie Gottlieb) |
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