It was very sad news that I received from this morning news that Cyclone ‘Aila’ has hit West Bengal and Bangladesh. Along with the news of about 50 people losing their lives in the burnt of Cyclone ‘Aila’, it is estimated that there would have been atleast a dozen tigers have seen their end with ‘Aila’. Sunderbans happens to be in the epicenter of the cyclone and it has resulted into a terrible loss to the Project TIGER efforts in the Sunderbans, which otherwise are considered as the safest among all the national reserves for the tigers. Sunderbans - where the land meets the sea at the southern tip of West Bengal, a stretch of impenetrable mangrove forest of great size and bio-diversity. A UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Sunderbans is a vast area covering 4264 square km in India alone. The Indian Sunderbans forms the largest Tiger Reserve and National Park in India and is a home to approximately 500 Bengal tigers in 2004 (not sure of the number though as there are contrasting figures available). The Bengal Tigers have adapted themselves very well to the saline and aqua environs and are extremely good swimmers.
The above news piece may be the making of another debacle after the SARISKA Shock for the tiger conservation enthusiasts in 2005. Those of who don’t know SARISKA, The Sariska tiger reserve is spread over about 881 sq km semi-arid region of western India's Aravalli Hill Range in Rajasthan and not too long ago, a trek to Tiger Point in Sariska Tiger Reserve used to almost guarantee views of the big cats and now antelopes graze with little to fear near a redundant sign depicting a picture of India's national animal. This was once considered as an ideal habitat given the plentiful supply of prey -- chital, sambar and wild pigs. The predators have disappeared from the reserve after its population of 14 tigers (controversial figure – many believe that 14 was an exaggerated figure even in 2003; the fact remains everyone has now resorted to the fact that there are no big cats in Sariska) was wiped out by poachers in the period between 2003 & 2005, a massive conservation scandal widely blamed on the negligence of the park and state government authorities. As an “apex predator”, the tiger heads nature’s food chain and holds the key to preserving the air, water and forests of our imperilled planet. By eating about 60-80 animals a year, a tiger keeps a check on the population of herbivores, who would otherwise denude the jungle of its every seed and root. Another tiger reserve going the SARISKA way is the PANNA national park in Madhya Pradesh where in only 1 tiger is reported to be seen last in Dec 2008. Efforts have been made to transship a female tigress from Bandhavgad to see if we can somehow breed tigers in PANNA.
One startling truth for the reason of the dwindling tiger population in the recent years is the paradox of income between the poacher and the forest guard. You could be a poacher, kill a tiger and sell it in black. Bingo! It brings you Rs 30 lakh overnight. Or you could be a forest guard and risk your life day and night to save the tiger from being poached. You could do that 30 years and still not make nine thousand a month. If you don’t laugh off this crazy math it is likely to stab at your brain during the endless silent marches in the brooding woods. I know this is not the only reason, but this can lead to activity among the grey cells of the administrators.
To get a macro perspective of the tiger conservation efforts, I have tried to plot the tiger population over the years. As always, this graph revealed a lot of truths around the TIGER and the tiger conservation efforts over the years. At the start of the 20th century it was estimated that around 40000 to 45000 tigers were dwelling in India’s forest cover. However the first 50 years of the century saw tigers reduced to only 5000, Thanks to the royal ways of the Maharajas and the British Viceroys and Governor Generals. In fact traditionally hunting was always considered a royal sport, however during this period, a special liking was developed for the tiger.
After independence, also the rate of tiger hunting was always on the rise, when the then PM, Indira Gandhi launched the Project TIGER in 1973. With the emphasis from the top and some good administrators, this project served as a silver lining among the grey clouds, India was able to seriously able to curtail the threat of Tiger’s extinction. You can see the growth of tigers in the NATIONAL reserves grow from 268 to 1400 in 20 years. Growth was also seen outside the NATIONAL reserves. However in India, good things don’t always last, the tide shifted back somewhere in the late 80’s and tigers were at risk again. The TIGER protection system had completely collapsed. While officials were busy misreporting the record of tiger numbers, poachers roamed about and cleaned the reserve out. Villagers here regard the tiger, and the park administration, as their common enemy no 1: they live sandwiched between the two, and are bitter about their desperately wretched existence and continued harassment. Due to the ban on tiger skin in India, the demand for tigers had reduced. However smugglers found some demand across the porous Chinese and Nepal border in the form of tiger bones for some Chinese Medicine and also the rich Tibetans buy a lot of tiger skin to show off their wealth and prowess during their local festivals. Also various urban development and mining development led to deforestation, which seriously has impacted the wild life population. One solacing fact is that the Tibetan leader Dalai Lama has urged his subjects not to resort to tiger skin in their traditional festival in Chennai last year and he hopes that the demand for skin would reduce in Tibet at least.
That graph revealed some shocking to the Indian authorities that the forest officials have been misreporting and exaggerating the tiger population; thanks to a primitive method of counting tigers and also did not want the alarm bells to ring. However in 2007, for the first time, a scientific method has been used for the tiger count in the said census, which has minimized the chances of manipulation and the tiger estimate now, is only 1400 tigers across India. It was evident that all was not well with the Indian tiger. It is this concern that led the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to personally intervene and review the conservation efforts. The Prime Minister described the state of affairs as the worst crisis of wildlife since the inception of the Project Tiger. The Prime Minister also asked for the Tiger Task Force to be set up, with a mandate to review tiger conservation and to suggest a new paradigm that shares the concerns of conservation with the public at large.
TIGER TASK FORCE was formulated under the leadership of Sunita Narain. The TIGER TASK FORCE report throws up some interesting suggestions like improvement in the forest protection force and their equipments, relocation of people settlements from the forest and since this cannot be done, improvement in the co-existence of tigers and people. Many suggestions were also brought up to increase the frequency and accuracy of tiger census. Also suggested was how do we increase the tiger tourism and how do we better utilize the revenue generated from tourism.
TIGER is an interesting animal and unlike most of the predators, it prefers to live alone. The tiger society revolves around the breeding female, who starts breeding at three-four years of age in a relatively fixed home range. She has tenure of five-seven years before she loses her range to a vigorous competitor. The adult male tiger has a larger range, overlapping several breeding females — three on an average. In favorable conditions, females give birth to litters of three-four cubs once every two-three years. When roughly two years old, the young are abandoned by their mother and these are known as dispersing transients (floaters) by biologists. Tigers move 10-15 km per day. Transient tigers can move over hundreds of kilometres in search of new homes. Ideally there should have an increase in the tiger population every year. However, the young tiger, in search of territory, moves beyond the protected enclave to the world outside. Once there were forests outside the reserve, and the tiger had survived. But now the landscape is degraded. Poor people live there. They live on the forests. But no investments have been made to improve their habitat. Wildlife managers say that the tiger cannot be protected within the ‘enclaved islands’ that our reserves have become. In the last tiger ‘census’, more than half the big cats were found not inside but outside the tiger reserves. These are lands which the tiger shares with people. But as the forests degrade in the landscape, the habitat shrinks. The protection of the tiger is inseparable from the protection of the forests it roams in. But the protection of these forests is itself inseparable from the fortunes of people who, in India, inhabit forested areas. Thus, any regulatory or enforcement regime that wishes to throw a protective ring around the tiger must take into cognisance that, apart from the tiger, the protection equation contains two other variables: the forests and the people that live in and around it. This is the unique situation conservation in India has always faced and tried to grapple with. If we work hard, we can protect a few hundred tigers in the protective islands of our reserves. If we improve our enforcement, we can protect a few more. But if we really want to safeguard the future of tigers, we will have to regenerate our forests.
Lets HOPE that PM’s personal interest in TIGER conservation would try and emulate and surpass the results achieved by project TIGER in the 1970’s.
PS: Despite the dwindling tiger population, some good news is flowing in from the Terai region of the Himalayas where the number of tigers is actually increasing! A significant growth in tiger population has been observed in the Corbett National Park, the Rajaji National Park of Uttarakhand, the Dudhwa National Park of Uttar Pradesh and the Valmiki Tiger Reserve in Bihar.
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