There is some good news for tiger lovers: preliminary results of the second all-India tiger census, due to be released in March, show a rise in the tiger density of the country’s three major tiger landscapes — including the Terai, Central India and the Western Ghats. The census, conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India, started in October 2009.
The tiger density in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park has been calculated at 32 tigers per 100 sq. km. while that at Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand is 20 tigers per 100 sq. km. The tiger population has risen in Dudhwa and Ranthambore sanctuaries as well as in the Sunderbans in West Bengal, Wildlife Institute of India sources said.
But while there have been tiger sightings in many of the Naxalite-infested states, several reserves, including Chhattisgarh’s Indravati Tiger Reserve and the
Manas and Palamu reserves, have not fared so well as far as their tiger population is concerned.
Ranthambore, with a population of 45 tigers, has not only provided five tigers to the Sariska sanctuary, but also three other tigers have migrated to the forested zone around the Chambhal river, said Rajasthan’s chief conservator of forests R.N. Mehrotra.
“Fortunately, the increment (tiger population) is equal to our losses, especially with Ranthambore now boasting of nine additional cubs having been born recently. Our tigers have been sent to Madhav National Park, Kotah, and Kundalpur in Madhya Pradesh,” Mr Mehrotra said.
Uttar Pradesh’s chief conservator of forests B.K. Patnaik also confirmed that his state’s tiger density had risen to 25 tigers per 100 sq. km. The 2007 census had found the state had 110 tigers and 208 leopards. “Uttarkhand’s overall tiger density is less than UP’s because our state continues to enjoy better forest cover,” Mr Patnaik said.
Mr Rajesh Gopal, who heads the National Tiger Conservation Authority, admits that exact figures are still being worked out but says “there are sufficient grounds to be positive”. He does acknowledge that there are serious issues of concern relating to many of the existing reserves. Nagarjunasagar-Srisailam is India’s largest tiger reserve, but for 16 years it has remained in the grip of armed ultra-left-wing extremists.
The census has been conducted in three phases. In the first phase, tiger signs were searched for, in the second remote-sensing techniques were used, and this was followed by photographing tigers using the most reliable camera-trapping techniques.
Over 500,000 sq. km. of forests spread over 39 tiger reserves in 17 states were surveyed in this mammoth operation. The findings sound extremely positive to conservationists given that the country’s tiger population had shrunk from 45,000 at the turn of the 19th century to just 1,400 in the last census.