By October last year, reports started to appear in media of an alarming decrease in tigers in Sariska.

Nobody took note of it till United Nations requested Indian Government to take note of the tiger disappearance from national parks and sanctuaries.

Now, this was strange because most of us believed or were made to believe that post Project Tiger, launched by the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, our tigers were secure.

But that was not so. In March, police made few arrests and the poachers confessed they had killed 10 tigers!

The case of Sariska Tiger reserve in Rajasthan was particularly alarming. Noted wildlife expert Valmik Thapar worriedly mentioned how no tigers had been spotted in Sariska since October 2004.

Worried, Prime Minister toured the wildlife reserve and announced a special task force to investigate the disappearance of tigers under the astute leadership of environmentalist Sunita Narain of Centre for Science and Environment. He also announced the setting up of a National Wild life Crime Prevention and Control Bureau to guard and control wildlife poaching.

The Save Tiger campaign received a major fillip when on June 30, Delhi Police apprehended and caught the notorious poacher Sansar Chand. Known to be kingpin, he is wanted in over 40 cases of poaching and smuggling. In 2004 he was sentenced to five years imprisonment by a court in Rajasthan. The authorities allege he is behind the recent disappearance of tigers from the Sariska reserve in the state.

The ease with which Sansar Chand had been poaching showed that both the Indian government and we as a people did not value our natural wealth and it took an outsider to remind us of our dwindling number of tigers.