Getting real: 1,411 is inflated count

India’s wild tiger population that has been estimated as 1,411 could be less than the often claimed figure, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 17, 2010, 01:15:10 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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India’s wild tiger population is less than the often claimed figure of 1,411 tigers.

“It (the figure) is an exaggeration,” Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh said, while launching a handbook on wildlife law enforcement in India. “I don’t know from where the figure came. Probably, the number of tigers in the wild are much lower and are diminishing day by day”.

Hindustan Times was the first to report in January that India’s wild tiger population may not be more than 1,000. Many experts have doubts over the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NCTA) figure of 1,411.

“To me, there are not more than 1,000 to 1,100 tigers in the wild,” said P.K. Sen, former director of Project Tiger.

The Tiger Census report had estimated maximum of 1,650 and minimum of 1,150 tigers in 2007. It meant an average of 1,411 tigers. Since then, over 100 deaths have been reported.

The new tiger census that uses better methodology will be completed by October and by December 2010, the number of big cat would be out.

Belinda Wright, executive director of Wildlife Protection Society of India, said: “The tiger estimate in new census would be less” than in 2008.

However, Sen said that “Except Corbett Tiger Reserve, the tiger population in most other reserves has diminished.”

But four tigers died in Corbett last month, which Anil Baluni, deputy chairman of state environment and forest advisory committee, said were because of natural reasons. “There wasn’t even a single case of poaching as all body parts were intact,” he said.

Green signal

The environment and forest ministry rejected a coalmine proposal on the ground that it would adversely impact the environment whereas approved a hydropower project.

The ministry on February 12 approved construction of a dam on Lohit river in Arunachal to produce 1,750 MW power despite protests by the groups.

“The Centre continues its neglect of the serious concerns of downstream impacts of dams in the northeast... ,” said Neeraj Vagholikar of NGO Kalpvakrish.

But a coalmine proposal in Lohara near Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve was rejected on the ground that it would adversely impact tiger population.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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