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Journalism of Courage
Years of tiger conservation efforts have yielded an uptick in the tiger population in India. In the 50th year of Project Tiger, India is now home to more than 3,000 tigers. Meanwhile, incidents of human-animal conflict continue to be a matter of concern, posing threat to both humans and wildlife.
Now, a video showing a tiger straying into human habitat and attacking cattle has surfaced online. The clip shared by Indian Forest Service officer Susanta Nanda on Twitter shows the big cat chasing a group of cows. The striped cat does rounds in an open field and eventually catches a calf. However, as they fall down, the calf escapes from the tiger’s shackles, and a cow is seen approaching the attacking tiger. The big cat seemingly frets over the cow charging towards it and runs away.
“India now has 75% of world’s wild tigers, numbering around 3200. It will reach it’s carrying capacity soon, until we are obsessed with numbers & make them pests in human dominated habitats,” Nanda wrote. Since being shared Saturday, the clip has amassed more than 33,000 views on Twitter. The location of the incident is not known.
The clip elicited several responses from social media users. A user commented, “Saved in the nick of time. But someone went away hungry.” Another user wrote, “Never seen a tiger hunting like this one..” A third user wrote, “Eye feast to see the tigers population but at the same time there should be implementation of concrete measures to prevent Human-Animal conflict nd wide awareness among the public on wildlife (Flora, Fauna) especially importance of apex predators and their role in ecosystem.”
As per the data of the 5th cycle of India’s Tiger Census, the number of tigers in the country has increased by 6.74 per cent from 2,967 in 2018 to 3,167 in 2022. Project Tiger was launched by the Centre on April 1, 1973, after the tiger population declined rapidly. Reportedly, the number of tigers at the time of Independence stood at 40,000 but by 1970, it rapidly declined to 2,000 due to widespread hunting and poaching.
