Fifty years ago, when India launched Project Tiger, the country’s national animal had dwindled to less than 2,000 from about 40,000 at the turn of the 20th century. The project reported successes for close to three decades. But conservationists were jolted in 2006, when tiger numbers fell to an all-time low of 1,411. Course corrections in wildlife management led to the majestic animal staging a remarkable comeback in several parts of the country. The latest Tiger Census report, released on Sunday, shows that the big cat’s population has increased to 3,682 from 2,967 in 2018. But these stellar figures should not draw the wildlife policymakers’ attention away from the Census’s fine print, which indicates areas of concern.
The data shows a dip in tiger numbers in Telangana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, parts of Northeast India and the Western Ghats. Eighteen reserves, most of them in these areas, have less than 10 big cats left. Odisha, the southern Western Ghats and Northeast India have genetically distinct varieties of the tiger. The fall in the animal’s population in these regions is, therefore, worrying. At the same time, the fragmentation of habitats in several parts of the country is leading to inbreeding among tiger varieties. The animal is known to travel hundreds of kilometres in search of habitat and mates. But as a 2021 study by researchers from the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru and Stanford University, revealed, “genomic variation of Indian tigers continues to be affected by connectivity issues”. With the country now home to 75 per cent of the world’s tiger population, it’s time that wildlife management is built on genetic studies, like this collaboration between NCBS and Stanford scientists.
