(India) How to Kill the Tiger

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How to Kill the Tiger

From the Aug. 07, 2006 issue of TIME Asia magazine

By BENJAMIN SIEGEL | NEW DELHI

 

Ruthless poachers and lame preservation efforts threaten India's big cats

with extinction

 

Sunday, Jul. 30, 2006

 

One of the difficulties with killing tigers is that they scream. Snaring

them is simple enough, says Nitin Desai, a conservationist at the Wildlife

Protection Society of India—you set a few iron traps near a game-park

watering hole, then wait for a tiger to take a wrong step. But when the

trap's jagged metal teeth sink into its paw, the tiger howls—an alarm that

can rouse a sleepy park ranger. So, a smart poacher will plunge a spear down

the trapped animal's throat and tear out its vocal chords; then, at his

leisure, he can poison or electrocute the cat—or, if the buyer doesn't mind

a bullet hole in the pelt, simply shoot it.

 

It may be far harder, in fact, to catch a poacher than a tiger. Typically,

says Desai, who has spent a decade chasing poachers and pelt dealers across

the central Indian state of Maharashtra, the hunt begins with a tip-off from

informants or rival dealers. Then you arrange a pelt showing. When the

dealer unfurls his roll of pelts, you sniff each skin to check its quality.

After that, you arrange the buy—in the midst of which the police pounce,

arresting the dealer. This hunt can take months, only to be followed by the

legal battle, which can take years. " It's not just about nabbing and nailing

them in the act, " says Desai.

 

Though India remains the world's last significant sanctuary for wild tigers,

the numbers there are dwindling fast. The country's wild tiger population

has dropped from about 100,000 in the 19th century to as few as 1,200 to

1,800 today. In another five years this feline population could plunge to a

level—around 500 cats—where in many parts of India it would no longer be

able to sustain itself. At that point, they would survive almost exclusively

in zoolike safari parks. " India is letting the tiger slip through its

fingers, " says Belinda Wright, director of the Wildlife Protection Society

of India. " It's going to be one of the biggest conservation debacles the

world has ever known. " Globally, the tiger's future looks similarly bleak. A

major study released last month by the Wildlife Conservation Society in New

York, the World Wildlife Fund and Washington's Smithsonian National

Zoological Park reports that tigers now occupy an area 41% smaller than a

decade ago. The report warns that, over the next 20 years, tigers are poised

to " disappear in many places, or shrink to the point of 'ecological

extinction.' "

 

Poaching has always been a problem in India, but economic growth across the

border has pushed hunters to new levels of greed. As the ranks of affluent

Chinese increase, so does the demand for tiger skins, along with ground

tiger bones, whiskers and penises for use in traditional Chinese medicine. A

large, unblemished pelt can fetch over $10,000, and powdered tiger bones

sell for hundreds of dollars per kilogram. Neighboring Tibet has become a

virtual shopping mall for tigers. In an undercover visit in 2005,

conservationist Wright filmed vendors in Lhasa hawking dozens of pelts and

swatches in the back rooms of stores and on street corners—an exposé that

led the Dalai Lama to condemn the trade.

 

Chinese demand may be driving the poaching boom, but conservationists blame

New Delhi for failing to protect the tigers. Wright reserves particular ire

for the government's 30-year-old showcase conservation effort, Project

Tiger, which is widely regarded as understaffed and underfunded. " The

government hasn't recruited any new forest staff in 15 years, " she says.

Remarks Valmik Thapar, one of India's foremost tiger experts and the

director of a conservation group called the Ranthambhore Foundation: " The

government just doesn't have the will to save the tiger. "

 

That message may, at least, have gotten through to Prime Minister Manmohan

Singh, who acknowledged last year that India needed " a more effective

strategy for tackling poaching and smuggling. " In April 2005 he convened a

Tiger Task Force, headed by Sunita Narian, one of India's most-admired

environmentalists. The Task Force recommended streamlining government

agencies and establishing a well-funded wildlife-crime bureau that would

take the burden of protection away from organizations like the Wildlife

Protection Society of India. But P.K. Sen, head of the World Wildlife Fund's

India Tiger Conservation Program and a former director of Project Tiger,

says the Task Force was a disappointment from the start. " There was nothing

new in the tiger action plan, " he claims. " The Task Force members only

looked at the best parks in the country, and never even went to the worst

ones. "

 

A year has passed since the Task Force issued its recommendations, and

there's scant evidence of progress. The wildlife-crime bureau is still just

a promising idea, and the government agencies in charge of conservation

remain as ineffective as ever. Some wildlife experts argue that the Task

Force may even be making the crisis worse. In its recommendations, it tries

hard to balance concern for the animals with promoting the rights of poor

farmers and tribal groups who share their land. " There are villages inside

core tiger-reserve areas with no food, no education, " says Narain. " While we

need to arm guards and build fences, we also need to find ways to improve

the lives of tribals and other poor people. " But any gain for people can be

a loss for the tiger, and conservationists argue that the tribal communities

sometimes assist poaching. " Every tiger that walks into the forest is a cash

register, " says Wright. " He represents years of funds for every poor person

that lives near his habitat. " A bill up for debate in parliament this month

would allow tribal communities expanded land and building rights in wildlife

reserves, which threatens to crowd tigers off their few remaining

sanctuaries. " If they recognize the tribal-rights bill, " says Thapar, " the

wildlife-protection act and the forest-conservation act will just collapse. "

 

Meanwhile, every month that India spends debating the tiger's future, that

future grows grimmer. As many as 250 tigers are slaughtered by Indian

poachers each year, according to Wright, and as populations fall, poachers

chase the animals deeper into the reserves. Nowhere is safe. In the Vidarbha

region, which includes the Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, a sanctuary where

the tiger population had expanded healthily for a quarter of a century, 12

tigers have died in the past 18 months. Some conservationists suspect that

other tiger reserves have already been virtually emptied of their

inhabitants.

 

Desai, the poacher hunter, despairs for the animals he lives to protect.

Despite his efforts, he laments, " There's an unbelievable quantity of skins

on the market. " Indeed, as India revels in its emergence as a global

economic power, conservationists wonder if the unique wildlife that once

owned the land is simply being left behind, shed like an old skin. " I think

India has to ask itself if it really wants the tiger, " says Wright. " Because

the signs are it doesn't. "

 

http://www.time.com/time/asia/magazine/article/0,13673,501060807-1220445,00.html