MP tiger count was flawed, says ministry

The government on Wednesday admitted of possible flaw in the tiger estimation 2010 with new survey in Madhya Pradesh projecting higher big cat population as against the estimation announced in March

Updated on: Jul 29, 2011, 24:17:09 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The government on Wednesday admitted of possible flaw in the tiger estimation 2010 with new survey in Madhya Pradesh projecting higher big cat population as against the estimation announced in March 2011.

The Madhya Pradesh government had objected to tiger population in the state falling to 257 in 2010 from 300 in 2006 and sought another survey of the six tiger reserves in the state.

"Our preliminary study has found higher tiger population than projected in the estimation," said P R Sinha, Director of Wildlife Institute of India. "The new estimate will be part of the next year's tiger census".

Karnataka's additional principal conservator of forests M S Swaminathan also questioned the estimation saying that if tiger reserves in the state have been rated very good on the 30 performance indices how the increase in big cat population is much less than the national average.

The national average is about 20 % whereas in case of Karnataka

Performance evaluation of tiger reserves

Very good: Annamalai, Bandhavgarh, Bandipur, Bhadra, Dangeli-Ansi, Kalakad-Mundanthurai, Kanha, Kaziranga, Mudumalai, Parambikulam, Pench (MP), Periyar, Satpura and Sunderbans

Good: Buxa, Corbett, Dampa, Dudhwa, Manas, Melghat, Nagarhole, Pakke, Pench (Maharashtra), Ranthambore, Tadoba-Andhari

Satisfactory: Achanakmar, Nameri, Namdapha, Sanjay, Sayadari and Valmiki

Poor: Satkosia.

As compared to 2006, there is overall improvement in performance of tiger reserves in India with population rising to 1,706 from 1,411 and poaching cases going down.

the increase in tiger population was only just five. "Does the government of India wants to say that 30 to 40 tigers have vanished from the state," he said.

The WII now says that Buxa tiger reserve in northern West Bengal have 15 tigers whereas no figure was presented in the estimation report.

Pointing another flaw in the estimation, former director of Project Tiger P K Sen said nine tigers were caught on camera trap in Valimki tiger reserve in Chhattisgarh but only eight have been recorded in the estimation.

Several tiger experts have doubted the increase in tiger population from 1,411 in 2006 to 1,706 in 2011 despite tiger habitat falling by 12 %. However, V Y Jhala of WII rubbished the claims saying that 81,000 sq kms of tiger land can sustain a population of 1700 tigers, more than half of total tigers in the world.

"If we have to improve tiger population connectivity between different tiger reserves should improve…the biggest loss in tiger habitat has been of the peripheral forest area," Jhala said, while presenting a detailed report on Tiger Estimation 2010.

Another WII scientist V B Mathur made a presentation on performance of 39 tiger reserves in India. Of them 14 were labeled as very good, 11 as good, six as satisfactory and one poor.

"There is a four percent improvement in management of tiger reserves since 2006," he said, while highlighting the issue of 30 % vacant posts of frontline forest-staff as a major challenge in improving the performance further.

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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