(IN): Tiger numbers to be released

May 23, 2007

Tiger numbers to be released

Swati Thiyagarajan

Wednesday, May 23, 2007 (New Delhi)

Tiger numbers for central India will be released on Wednesday as part

of the national tiger census being carried out in the country.

Sources have told NDTV that numbers in Madhya Pradesh alone could be

less than half the number the state has projected for years.

This time around a broad spectrum of parameters were used to ascertain

tiger numbers. Everything from habitat to prey base availability and

camera trapping has been used to come up with tiger numbers.

The photo data collected is the first ever record of its kind of

existing tigers in India.

The last government census put tiger numbers at 3500. This was with

the old pugmark method.

The pugmark method is prone to errors and it has been very clear since

the Sariska debacle that the government has been inflating tiger

numbers in every national park and sanctuary for fear of criticism.

This has affected the protection of the big cat adversely. We have

lost over 800 tigers to poaching since 1998.

Conservationists fear that this time numbers could be as low as just

1500 tigers in the country.

Around the world tigers have disappeared from over 40 per cent of

their historical ranges and total numbers worldwide in the wild are at

less than five thousand tigers.

India is the only tiger range state with over one thousand tigers. In

India certain areas like the western ghats and the Sunderbans and

Uttarakhand have improved on tiger numbers while most areas have lost

their tigers.

''Apart from poaching, habitat loss has been the biggest reason for

dismal tiger numbers and also human encroachment into tiger areas,''

said Bittu Sehgal, Editor, Sanctuary magazine.

The exercise, which has been on for over a year and a half now with

88,000 personal deployed across the country in all tiger areas, will

release the entire data only by the end of this year.

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