(IN): India fails to stop tiger death ride

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http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/environment/flora-fauna/66-tigers-dead-i\

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India fails to stop tiger death ride

 

 

66 Cats Have Died Between Jan & Aug ’09

 

Avijit Ghosh | TNN

 

New Delhi: Their dipping count has sounded alarm bells, forced wildlife

activists to cry for action but all in vain. Tiger deaths continue unabated

across the country. Statistics collated from different parts of India by a

wildlife NGO show between January 1 and August 19 this year, 66 tigers have

died. Of these, 23 died due to poaching.

The list includes seizures of skins, bones, claws, skeletons, canines and

paws by the police and wildlife authorities during the period. The remaining

43 died due to a variety of reasons — infighting, old age, tiger-human

conflict, accidents and disease — according to statistics provided by the

Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI). “In the last few months,

Uttarakhand and Karnataka have recorded the maximum number of tiger deaths.

It illustrates that the problem exists across the country,” says Belinda

Wright of WPSI.

In the Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve of Madhya Pradesh, a tigress was found

dead on Tuesday. “It could be a case of poisoning. The samples have been

sent to Sagar forensic lab and Jabalpur veterinary college,” says S K Patil,

the reserve’s field director. “The tigress had three cubs. Two have been

spotted. We are trying to trace the third,” says Patil.

The national tiger census released in January 2008 showed 1,411 tigers

alive as compared to 3,508 in 1997, a drastic drop of 60%.

K Ullas Karanth, a Bangalorebased conservation scientist, says decline of

tigers since 1990s can be attributed to “the collapse of field protection

and patrolling”. This, he says, is the fallout of “a mission drift in forest

department”, which has moved away from its “core task of protection towards

eco-development, needless habitat modifications and other distractions”.

“In areas where these protective measures are still in place, tigers are

doing okay. The key issue is not just poaching. More important is the issue

of their prey species being hunted out,” Karanth says.

*

FALL OF THE WILD

 

*

*

ANDHRA PRADESH

 

*1 tigress poached, 1 skin seized

*

ASSAM

 

*6 tigers found dead, 1 found incapacitated dies, 1 shot dead by forest

dept, 1 tigress poached, 5 kg bones, 4 canines and other body parts seized

*

GOA

 

*1 tiger poached

*

KARNATAKA

 

*6 tigers found dead, 4 tiger skins seized

*

MADHYA PRADESH

 

*

1 skin seized, 1 tigress poached, 10 tigers, including 3 cubs, found dead

*

MAHARASHTRA

 

*7 tigers, including 3 cubs, found dead. Another tiger poached, bones and 10

claws seized

*

MANIPUR

 

*2 skulls, 2 paws and 16 kg bones seized

*

ORISSA

 

*1 tiger poached

*

RAJASTHAN

 

*1 tigress found dead

*

TAMIL NADU

 

*1 skin seized, 1 cub found dead

*

UTTAR PRADESH

 

*2 tigers found dead, 1 tiger shot by forest dept, 2 skins and 30 kg bones

seized

*

UTTARAKHAND

 

*6 tigers found dead, 1 skin and skeleton seized

*

WEST BENGAL

 

*1 tiger found dead, 2 skins and a skeleton seized

*(Source: Wildlife Protection Society of India) *

 

 

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