The national wildlife agencies have hinted that Karnataka could regain its top spot among tiger states, surpassing Madhya Pradesh. Currently, with 524 tigers, Karnataka trails behind MP by just two, and since the last census in 2018, some tiger areas in the state are reporting phenomenal growth in tiger population.
As MP has a larger area, the tiger population density in Karnataka is higher. While a tiger needs at least 10 sqkm area as its territory, in Karnataka, a tiger has 5-6 sqkm and, in some areas, as small as 3 sqkm — a reason for higher conflict rates.
The 2018 census recorded 524 tigers in Karnataka, and an increase by 5-10 per cent is estimated. But the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) says MP has shown better relocation works while Karnataka has moved conflicting tigers to rehabilitation centres instead of areas with lesser tiger population.
Conservation activists and forest officials in Karnataka say tiger numbers may go up as the Kali landscape in Uttara Kannada district and MM Hills/Cauvery landscape in Ramanagara and Chamarajanagar districts will add to the population. Also, Bandipur Tiger Reserve, with the highest concentration of tigers, may record 200-plus tigers in the upcoming census.
NTCA experts, who recognise the 12,000 sqkm Nilgiri Biosphere spread across three states — connecting Mudumalai, Wayanad, Bandipur and Nagarhole, and houses the highest tiger and elephant populations — as the richest landscape in the world, say development works around forest areas taken up in potential tiger reserve areas will affect the tiger population.
Karnataka Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, (wildlife) Vijay Kumar Gogi says the total forest area in Karnataka is 36 lakh hectares, of which the area under five tiger reserves is four lakh hectares.“As we hope to see a rise in tiger population, we are working on improving the habitat and prey base. The census figures also take into account the death rate, the injured and captured animals and the habitat. We have high focal points like Bandipur and Nagarhole, but there is a lot of potential in Kali, Bhadra, MM Hills, Kollegal and Cauvery wildlife sanctuary,” he says.
He points out that as Karnataka houses a healthy breeding population and new stripe patterns are being accounted for in camera traps, the shrinking habitat, pressure and change on land use, rising drip irrigation cultivation, farming activities inside forest areas is a matter of worry.
TIGERS IN NON-TIGER AREAS
It’s estimated that 30 per cent of tigers in Karnataka roam outside regular tiger reserves and national parks. Forest patches in Haliyal, Yellapur, Sirsi, Sakleshpur, Khanapur, Bannerghatta and Bisle have recorded the presence of tigers in recent camera traps by Forest Department officials. They say this is the time to concentrate on territorial divisions of Ramanagara, Bhadra, Kali and Sakleshpur where tiger signs and potential sightings have been reported.
Y V Jhala, scientist and coordinator for the tiger census, from Wildlife Institute of India (WII), says the census will be done using the M-Stripe App. “All data will be accounted for and taken up digitally. This is being done to ensure the data is accurate. Last time, when manually gathered data was tabulated, there were errors in global positioning system (GPS) coordinates,” he says.
“Even though the camera trap assessment is the most accurate, ideal and reliable form of assessment, it alone cannot be done because of the cost factor involved,” he says. The assessment is different as this time not just tigers’ prey base is being assessed and accounted for, but even leopard and elephant populations.
“Now, the Ministry of Environment and Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is to take a final decision whether one collated report will be released, or three separate reports will be released,” he adds.
DELAY AND PROBLEMS
Forest Department officials say the exercise has been delayed because of bugs and technical issues in the M-Stripe App. They say there were many discrepancies in data compilation, and the app did not include many local species and was not computer-friendly.
The NTCA officials say that based on feedback, suitable corrections were made and the census should be done once in four years. “The exercise should have been started in 2021, but camera trap work itself began in October 2021. The Central Government is also keen on presenting the report at the St Petersburg Summit, scheduled in November 2022. It’s also possible that the report may be released in July on International Tiger Day,” says a Forest official.
Wildlife conservationist and trustee of Wildlife First, Praveen Bhargav, says the estimation of tiger numbers has become a monopoly of WII. This stifling of independent scientific research is condemnable. Eminent scientists who pioneered sampling-based techniques to estimate tigers have found that the extrapolation of tiger numbers using the index-calibration methodology by WII, is scientifically unreliable, he feels.
“To stall rigorous scrutiny, WII has not released raw data although huge sums of public money has been spent. These cast a shadow on WII estimates. The tiger’s range has been shrinking due to development projects, encroachments and the unbridled grant of rights under the Forest Rights Act. Not one hectare of critical wildlife habitat, which can address these threats, has yet been notified. Tiger reserve budgets have ballooned for destructive but “lucrative” earth-moving works based on unscientific management plans. For any improvement, these need to be urgently addressed,” he says.
K Ullas Karanth, Emeritus Director, Centre for Wildlife Studies, Bengaluru, says, “The tiger surveys of 2010, 2014, 2018 have gone on increasing these back-up numbers, using different statistical methods each time, claiming successful climb all the way back to 3,000 or so! This game of numbers reflects no real achievements, because if you consider there were about 2,000 tigers in the 1970s, when tiger conservation took off, it still reflects a minuscule annual growth rate of less than 1 per cent. It suffices to say we can only aspire to have a maximum of 3,500 tigers.”