A rise in the number of tigers in India is good news, although questions have come to be raised about the accuracy of the reporting in the 2010 tiger census, whose results were made known on Monday. The king of the jungle is the top predator in the food chain and helps maintain a key balance between prey herbivores and the vegetation upon which these feed. Besides, our forests are also water catchment areas. Forests that have tigers are said to be responsible for the birth of 600 rivers and perennial streams.
Saving one tiger is thought to protect 100 sq km of forest (whose vegetation might have been consumed by the tigers’ prey), and also save the other species living in it. Thus the survival of the tiger is deemed crucial to maintaining the ecological balance, as well as air, water, pollination and temperature regulation. The sensitive grasp of this by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi led to India’s tiger protection project over three decades ago. In recent years, however, the news has not been good. Wildlife poachers have spread their tentacles across the country’s tiger landscape. In the light of this, the reported 12 per cent increase in the tiger population — taking the count from 1,411 in 2006 to 1,706 in 2010 — is refreshing. But expert opinion is somewhat sceptical. Even if the figures are taken at face value, the rise is said to be over a small base, and magnifies the significance of the phenomenon. Doubts have also been raised whether enumerators actually managed to reach the jungle territories where Maoists have made it difficult for officials to operate. The question thus remains: has the earlier shrinkage of the tiger population been actually reversed?
It is worrying that even the data at hand suggests that tiger populations have declined in areas that had the highest concentration of the predator — such as Kaziranga in the northeast (which has 100 tigers, the highest in a single reserve) and the Kanha-Pench-Bandhavgarh belt in central India. Poaching in these areas is still believed to be a menace. At a media interaction on Monday, minister of state for environment and forests Jairam Ramesh acknowledged that poaching and other dangers had been relevant factors in recent years. But he noted that growth in the tiger population was still possible due to “unreported tiger births”. This does appear a bit dodgy. If the births were “unreported”, then how can we know? That’s a straightforward question. There are other questions as well, relating to the methodology of reporting. The census collected field data — incorporating information on tiger signs, prey availability, habitat conditions and human disturbances — in the first phase. Subsequently, however, the camera trapping method — 800 such traps were laid — was deployed in select sample areas covering 10,500 sq km, or around five per cent of the total. It is on the basis of extrapolating these results that the final figure of the tiger population — 1,706 — was reached. Some experts though, are not persuaded about the reliability of the process. The government would do well to give satisfactory answers to some of the questions which have been raised. Another source of concern is the shrinking of the land area — from nine million hectares to 7.5 million hectares — in which the tigers survive. The curtailing of tiger corridors on account of human development brings up the human versus animal issues that have political and economic overtones, and are seldom easy to resolve.