Roads becoming silent stalkers of big cats: Centre

The Environment Ministry told the Lok Sabha on Wednesday that as many as 16 animals have been killed in road accidents since September 2003. The toll includes five tigers, seven panthers, two leopards and two elephants. All incidents have been reported on roads passing through or along boundaries of reserved forests areas.

While the Dehradun forest range saw two leopards die on the National Highway alongside the reserve this year, one elephant was killed near the Corbett Tiger reserve and another tigress killed near Haldwani in the Nainital range. “While the ‘missing tigers’ have raised concerns across the nation and ‘Project Tiger’ is on the job to protect the big cats from becoming extinct, the roads of India are fast becoming their silent stalkers,” a top Ministry official told The Indian Express.

The only first few steps towards animal road safety came recently with the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) planning a special underpass for elephants through Delhi-Dehradun corridor, which passes through the Rajaji national park. “Be it National Highways or railway lines, animals are killed because these routes are not well lit and in the night when vehicles are driving on high beam, animals with their lateral vision follow the glare and ultimately get killed. While roads have to be made to reach these areas, the solution is to install light electrical fencing along these animal corridors to keep them from crossing these sections,” said Uma Menon, Wildlife Warden, Delhi Government.

The Environment Ministry says that four National Highways pass through the ‘Project Tiger’ areas in the country. NH-31C passes through the buffer zone along southern fringe of the Buxa reserve. NH-16 passes through the southern boundary of Indravati tiger reserve and NH-7 traverses across the border of the Pench Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh while another section of the same highway goes right through the reserve in Maharashtra. The Bandipur tiger reserve has the Mysore-Ooty and Gundulpet-Sultanbathery state highways passing through while Moradabad-Tehri road passes on the eastern boundary of Corbett reserve for about 35 km. Two state highways runs along the reserve boundary at Dampa while another two cut through Melghat reserve. Nagarjunsagar has another two state highways passing through and running along its boundary while the Daltonganj-Ranchi state highway cuts through Palamau reserve northern fringe.

The Environment Ministry said that as far as taking action is concerned, “it provides funds to tiger states based on their proposals under the centrally sponsored scheme of Project Tiger, which includes diversion of roads and highways passing through reserves”. That clearly does not seem to be helping much.