In 2006, the country’s tiger population hit a record low of around 1,400 animals. A year earlier came the shocking report that Sariska in Rajasthan, one of the country’s premier reserves, had lost all its tiger population. Conservation efforts since then have contributed to the majestic animal bouncing back appreciably. The results of the latest Census, released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday, show that India has 3,167 tigers in the wild — a 6.7 per cent increase over what was reported in the last Census in 2019. Experts reckon that this is a conservative estimate and the final part of the Census report, slated to be published in two months, is likely to show a greater increase in the tiger count. But the largely optimistic picture — including photographic evidence of tigers in new areas in Himachal Pradesh and UP — should not detract from paying attention to the report’s fine print that indicates areas of concern.
The number of tigers has come down in Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh and colonies of the animal seem to have disappeared from some reserves in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. Of particular concern is the decline of the genetically unique varieties of the animal in Odisha and parts of Northeast India. The numbers of the Simlipal tiger, which has an unusually broad and fused stripe, have been coming down steadily in the last decade. Studies show that the reserve in Odisha is unable to provide its tiger population with an adequate prey base. Poaching has reportedly become rampant in recent times. The report notes that better protection and augmentation of prey in protected areas in the Northeast “could help increase the tiger population”.
Madhya Pradesh, home to six reserves, has the highest number of tigers in the country. When the numbers of the animal in the core regions of the protected areas increase, some of them move out, bringing the tiger in greater proximity to humans. The problem is compounded because the tiger-rich states, including MP, have been losing natural forests to a variety of human pressures. Last year, a tiger strayed into the National Institute of Technology Campus in Bhopal. The animal was rescued and returned to the wild. But the patience of local communities seems to have been tested in other parts of the country. Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh has become one of the hotspots of human-tiger conflict — villagers in the vicinity of the reserve allegedly beat up tigers to death in 2019 and 2020. The often understaffed forest departments find themselves ill-equipped to deal with such predicaments. The time has come to look at tiger conservation in all its complexities, and not just numbers.
