Sharp skew in national big cat map: 20% of tiger area has less than 1% of tiger population

In all, there are 53 tiger reserves covering a combined area of 75,797 sq km.

While the latest quadrennial AITE records a net gain of 715 tigers over the previous estimate in 2018, the national count shows the shrinking range of the big cat since 45% of India’s tigers are concentrated in another set of 16 reserves that also account for roughly one-fifth of India’s tiger area. (See chart)

This skew is persistent — but getting sharper.

In the previous AITE in 2018, 14 of the 16 bottom reserves (two were not in existence then) together reported 40 tigers. That number is now down to 19.

“This is why the overall growth (in tiger numbers) should not make us complacent. The situation is not good in states such as Jharkhand (only one tiger recorded), Orissa, Chhattisgarh and many areas in the Northeast. We need to invest in protection and prey base, and possibly look at the option of reintroducing tigers in some of these reserves,” Qamar Qureshi, lead scientist of the AITE told The Indian Express.

Experts say the abysmal tiger density in the 16 reserves can be attributed to lax management, poor protection, habitat degradation and loss of prey base.

Yet, this hardly registers in the Ministry’s audit.

In its latest report released last week, the Management Effectiveness Evaluation (MEE) — a “comprehensive, system-wide, peer-based” assessment on 33 parameters — scored nine of these 16 bottom reserves as ‘Very Good’ (above 75%) or ‘Good’ (60-74%).

While two were notified after the MEE exercise, the remaining five reserves were scored ‘Fair’ (50-59%).

“It’s worrisome that the slide in the bottom strata (in tiger count) shows no sign of reversal. One of the big achievements of Project Tiger was that we held on to India’s tiger range until this trend of losing areas set in. Losing tigers from an area may have irreversible consequences and reintroduction cannot always compensate for the genetic loss,” said conservation biologist Raghu Chundawat who has worked extensively on snow leopards and tigers.

Qureshi agreed that losing tigers in these reserves amounts to losing genetic resources. “Arunachal, for example, is where different (tiger) sub-species may overlap. Then the (pseudo-melanistic) tigers of Simlipal are unique and the recent reports of poachers operating there is a matter of serious concern,” he said. The Kamlang and Namdapha reserves in Arunachal have registered just one tiger in 2022 as compared to 15 in 2018.

Between 2014 and 2018, tigers relinquished nearly 18,000 sq km, or 20%, of its national range which was offset by the new areas they colonised in that period.

While the latest AITE report has not specified the extent, it has reported a significant loss of tiger range in Wayanad, northern Karnataka, Jharkhand, Goa, Chhattisgarh, Orissa, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland since 2018.

Noting that the dynamic parts of the tiger range, where loss or gain of occupancy are reported periodically, support low-density populations, the latest AITE report said: “Such habitats with low-density tigers, though contributing minimally to overall tiger numbers, are crucial links for gene flow and maintaining connectivity between source populations.”