Strategy to protect tigers takes shape

The member of the steering group on the new action plan M A Parthasarathy told The Indian Express that the new plan was “a move to recognise and tackle the serious situation concerning the preservation of tiger in India”.The new plan comes as the Project Tiger launched 25 years ago, once considered the greatest success in wildlife conservation, is being besieged with a host of problems.

Launched in 1973 under the initiative of former prime minister Indira Gandhi to prevent the extinction of tigers in India which had dwindled to few hundreds, the project proved to be a success as their number went up to 4,334 in the 1993 census. But unprecedented commercialisation of wildlife in the 90s, new techniques in poaching and inability of the establishment to tackle it readily undermined the success of Project Tiger and in 1994 the official records showed the figure at 3,750.

At present, the official figure of the Indian tiger stands at 3,100 though wildlife activists believe that the number would be much lower.