Tiger numbers sink to record low

The Tiger population in India has touched an all-time low. According to the census report, its population in India has dwindled to a mere 1,411, reports Chetan Chauhan.

Updated on: Feb 13, 2008, 02:12:28 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The Tiger population in India is at an all-time low, according to the government’s tiger census report released on Tuesday. It is estimated there are only 1,411 tigers are now left in the wild, the report said.

The maximum estimated figure, the best scenario possible, is 1,657, which is lower than the 1,800 tigers estimated in India’s first tiger census in 1960.

This is a massive fall from 2002 when the tiger population was estimated to be 3,642.

The latest figures are of all tiger reserves except those in Jharkhand, and Indravati in Chhattisgarh, where the Naxal threat prevented estimation. In Sunderbans, the estimation process is still on.

Central India, which has the large tiger population states of Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan, has seen the maximum losses. Fifty-nine per cent of the tiger population of Madhya Pradesh, and 50% of Maharashtra, has been wiped out.

Tiger reserves in the south — in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh — and the Jim Corbett Park in the terai have done well, said Rajesh Gopal, member secretary of the National Tiger Conservation Authority.

The Wildlife Institute of India blamed poaching, increasing man-animal conflict, falling prey base and habitat loss for tiger as major reasons for the huge fall in tiger population between 2001 and 2006. But Gopal said it was not too late to save the tigers. “We need to take proactive steps.”

Wildlife conservationist Valmik Thapar said efforts should be initiated as soon as possible to save the big cats. “It is now time to act and save tigers from human beings. We have to create inviolate areas for tigers and provide modern weapons to forest guards,” he said. Thapar added that vacancies of frontline forest staff should be filled fast.

Gopal said that the census methodology adopted in 2002 was not foolproof. “Experts had doubted the pug mark counting methodology because it could lead to higher estimation. We adopted the modern technology of camera trap and DNA sampling to reach a near correct figure,” he said.

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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