The past year was not a good one for India’s tigers as official data revealed that 115 of these majestic predators died in 2017. For the second consecutive year, more than 100 big cats perished in India. The tiger apparently means very little to us beyond its national animal status. But it must. A large part of India’s population sustains itself because tigers—which occupy just two per cent of India’s area—-rule the forests the country’s perennial rivers originate from.
The first-ever economic evaluation of tiger reserves undertaken by the Indian Institute of Forest Management, Bhopal and National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in 2015 revealed the Corbett Tiger Reserve’s contribution to water purification of New Delhi would stand at a staggering Rs 550 million a year. India now has 50 tiger reserves and while their contribution to the country’s economy can never be truly measured, we are yet to know how 90 out of 115 tigers died last year. Poaching and electrocution apart, tigers are becoming road kills in India, which has the world’s largest wild tiger population. India’s insatiable hunger for infrastructure to help a booming population is spelling doom for tigers.
But not everything is so gloomy. Between 2006 and 2014, the tiger count almost doubled, thanks to NTCA and strong conservation practices by states including Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Rajasthan. But their population there has saturated and if India has to strengthen its big cat count, it must look to Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Andhra and parts of the Northeast (except Assam).
Despite a history of tiger abundance and favourable habitats, these states have fallen behind due to laggard conservation and management practices. The tiger numbers here have dropped due to rampant poaching of their prey. It’s time the states created more protected areas and strengthened front-line forest staff. This would need serious political and administrative will. And, of course, respect for the royal stripes.