luxurious Tigers There are many lovely creatures in India and at the same time they are feared. The national animal of the country has been making news for some time now for both good and bad reasons. The positive story is the recently released findings of the fifth cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation (2022), which put the number of these big cats in India at 3,167, an increase of two hundred from the 2,967 reported in the 2018 Tiger Census, released Gone in July 2019.
Here’s the bad news. Recently, there has been an increase in the number of casualties due to tiger-human conflicts. More than 15 deaths have been reported so far in encounters with tigers this year alone.
The maximum number of cases are from Chandrapur district of Maharashtra. According to news reports quoting officials, eight people have died in tiger attacks in the district since January this year. Last year, 53 people were killed in tiger and leopard attacks here, which is home to the famous Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR), while 14 tigers died in different incidents during the same period.
In February this year, the killing of a young tribal boy and his grandson within hours of each other in separate tiger attacks in Karnataka’s Kodagu district made it to the international press. Chetan, 12, was killed by a tiger while harvesting coffee in a plantation adjacent to a forest. Hours later, his 75-year-old grandfather Raju was killed in a similar tiger attack within 500 meters of the previous incident. Both the cases occurred close to the Nagarhole Wildlife Sanctuary buffer zone. Hindustan Times reported that his 45-year-old female relative Jayamma was so shocked upon hearing the news that she too passed away.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi met the family members of a 50-year-old farmer who died in a tiger attack on January 12, 2023, in Wayanad, his former Lok Sabha constituency in Kerala, in February this year.
In October 2022, forest officials in Bihar were forced to issue a shoot-at-sight order to kill a “man-eating” tiger over three years old. The tiger had reportedly killed nine people living on the fringes of the Valmiki Tiger Reserve in West Champaran district within a span of six months. Sharpshooters of the Special Task Force team of Bihar Police were involved in killing it. The victims of the slain tiger include a 16-year-old boy, a 35-year-old man, a 12-year-old girl and a 40-year-old woman.
more recently, Video of a tiger attacking a tourist vehicle Raised concerns among conservationists near Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand.
The pattern of tiger kills is more or less the same across the country. The victims are attacked either when they go to the forest to collect firewood or forest produce like ‘mahua’ or when they go to the field near the forest to keep an eye on the standing crops from wild animals. In some cases, hungry wild animals enter human habitation in search of animals like pet dogs, cattle etc. for their prey. Sometimes an attack occurs when a person goes outside to defecate or sleeps in the open.
Between 2015 and 2021, 262 people lost their lives in tiger attacks across the country, with 50 deaths in 2019, said government data tabled in Parliament over time. Among states, Maharashtra recorded the highest number of 122. Murders after 50 in Uttar Pradesh
So, why is there an increase in tiger-human conflict and the reported presence of big cats in areas where they have not been seen in recent times?
“Each wild tiger needs a prey base of 500 animals to sustain it. When prey becomes abundant, individual tiger territories shrink and reproduction increases. can produce 10–15 cubs in the U.S., an average of one cub per year. As a result, growing tiger populations produce an annual surplus, pushing sub-adults and older tigers to the edges of reserves to disperse ,” wrote Ullas Karanth of the Center for Wildlife Studies, Bengaluru, in The Hindu.
Debi Goenka explains, “There is a lot of disturbance of tiger habitats under the label of eco-tourism and secondly, tigers are losing space within successfully managed protected areas (PAs) and are being pushed into non-protected areas. I am being forced to go.” , Executive Trustee, Conservation Action Trust (CAT), Mumbai. Goenka blamed intrusion in developmental projects for the situation. “Wildlife corridors are being repeatedly destroyed by infrastructure projects.”
Explaining the sighting, Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer Sushant Nanda further said: “Tigers have a long home range and dietary requirements. Growth in tiger and human populations, without increasing the amount of tiger habitat, intensifies competition for space between the two, leading to conflict.
“We have allowed their habitats to be damaged or destroyed. We have not been able to provide them intact habitat,” says Goenka, fuming over the failure to secure a protected and undisturbed environment for the tigers.
Tigers live in a surprisingly wide range of habitats, including rainforests, grasslands, savannas, and even mangrove swamps. Sadly, due to the rapid expansion of human activities, 93% of the original tiger habitats have disappeared, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
Further, expressing disquiet over a recent Supreme Court order modifying its earlier order on Eco-Sensitive Zones (ESZs) around national parks and sanctuaries, Goenka says: “Even the existing protected areas are also under severe pressure. Even the Supreme Court is allowing state governments to reduce areas protected as ESZ.”
On April 26, 2023, the apex court issued a direction stating that its previous order from June 3 of last year, which required setting up of 1-km Eco-Sensitive Zones (ESZ) around protected areas, in will not apply. Instances where a draft or final notification had already been issued for the development.
According to the recently released Status of Tigers 2022 survey by the Centre, the tiger population has increased by 200 to 3,167. So, is the growing population of tigers and increasing urbanization putting pressure on their survival resources?
“The carrying capacity of tigers in Indian forests so far has been estimated by experts to vary. The lowest is pegged at 4,000, while some put it at 10,000. Whatever the case, an increase of 200 in numbers is surely now resources are not being augmented,” counters Nanda, who is also the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) nodal in Odisha.
“More than 30% of the tigers are outside the tiger reserves. Preserving the tiger landscape and the corridor between them can reduce conflict to a great extent,” suggests Nanda, when asked about ways to reduce human-dominated landscapes for the big cats to survive.
“We need to protect all the forests we have left,” says Goenka, repeating Nanda’s advice. “We need to stop linear projects cutting through forest areas. We need to provide suitable alternative employment and livelihood to local people living in and around tiger habitats.”
Wildlife experts and environmentalists have been raising concerns about linear infrastructure including power transmission lines, railways, roads, pipelines and canals, arguing that these developments cause forest fragmentation and harm natural habitats, including large forests. Also included are areas that are important to wildlife.
The Tiger Survey report has also expressed concern over the poor quality of protected areas for the big cats. “Most tiger reserves and protected areas in India exist as small islands in a vast sea of ecologically unstable land use, and many tiger populations are confined to small protected areas. However, some habitat corridors exist that allow tigers to move between them. Most of these habitats are not protected areas, and are further deteriorating due to continuous human use and developmental projects, and thus are not conducive to animal movement,” the government report said. Is.
In addition, ornamental shrubs such as Lantana camara and Pogostemon benghalensis have also severely disrupted the food chain of wild animals. Lantana, a non-native plant, was brought to India from Central America by the British about 200 years ago. Today, this invasive plant is ubiquitous from cities to jungles, threatening more than 40% of India’s tiger habitat, according to one study.
Poisonous lantana plant not only spreads rapidly, but it also inhibits the growth of other plants and grasses. This triggers a catastrophic chain of ecological events that result in the migration of herbivores and ultimately threaten the existence of India’s majestic tigers and other carnivorous species due to an increased likelihood of starvation.
In the 50th year of the successful ‘Project Tiger’ programme, India can boast of an increasing number of tigers. However, there is still much work to be done in maintaining a delicate balance between humans and the big cats, ensuring that both can thrive harmoniously in their respective habitats.
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