Indian tiger isn’t 100 per cent swadeshi

New Delhi, Nov 18: There couldn't have been a worse birthday present. When experts gather tomorrow to celebrate Project Tiger's silver jubil...

New Delhi, Nov 18: There couldn’t have been a worse birthday present. When experts gather tomorrow to celebrate Project Tiger’s silver jubilee, they will have a new reason to worry. Now there’s conclusive scientific confirmation that the genes of the wild Indian tiger have been irreversibly polluted with those unique to Siberian tigers.

For conservationists, this is disturbing news. India spends about $ 75 million a year to protect the tiger and ensure its genetic purity. The survival of any species in the wild depends on it being able to freely breed and reproduce. Whether these hybrids with this new set of alien genes are able to breed in India is anybody’s guess. Also, it’s well-known that a major mismatch of genes can result in sterility. More importantly, these hybrids are likely to be carrying genes that confer on them adaptability to the Siberian winter, a world away from the tropical climate of the Terai jungle.

A DNA fingerprinting study has shown that hair samples taken from two wild tigers fromthe Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in northern India have Siberian genes. Lalji Singh, an expert on DNA fingerprinting at Hyderabad’s Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, confirms this in the latest issue of the Indian journal Current Science

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. He suggests immediate DNA-profiling of all tigers to identify and segregate the hybrids.

But where did the Siberian genes come from in this Indian population that is totally cut off from its Siberian cousins? The story starts in the late 1970s. Amongst much controversy, Billy Arjan Singh, a conservationist living on the edge of Dudhwa, had reintroduced into the wild – in a “Living Free” type experiment – a zoo-bred captive tigress called Tara. She was a gift from Tycross Zoo in the UK and of Siberian parentage.

Wildlife experts like Ram Lochan Singh who was then the Field Director of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve strongly opposed this reintroduction saying that because the tigress was of mixed parentage, it would be unwise to reintroduce her into the wild. Later, itwas R L Singh who had actually shot Tara after it allegedly turned a man-eater. But by then, she had bred and left her progeny in Dudhwa.

Today, there are only about 3,500 tigers in the Indian forests. Incidentally, most of the captive tigers are largely hybrids between Bengal and Siberian sub species of tigers and hence not good for long-term conservation. The present study has also been able to segregate the pure and hybrid individuals which was not possible till now.

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Lalji says, “The source of the Siberian genes is probably from this single reintroduction and the hybrids we see today may be the progeny of Tara.” Says Project Tiger director Prashanta Kumar Sen, “The findings are yet to be authenticated beyond this single report from Hyderabad and that they are planning to start a major research effort to get to the bottom of this mystery.”

(Pallava Bagla is India Correspondent for Science magazine)