CHENNAI: The State forest department has disputed the latest tiger census summary report prepared by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and Wildlife Institute of India which claimed local extinctions of tiger population in Kanniyakumari and Srivilliputhur, which are either fully or partially part of notified tiger reserves in Tamil Nadu.
The census report released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi noted that although tiger populations in the Periyar landscape have remained stable, tiger occupancy outside of Periyar has decreased. Local extinctions of tiger populations were noticed in Sirsi in Karnataka; Kanniyakumari and Srivilliputhur in Tamil Nadu.
The observation has been contested by local field officers saying there is enough evidence of tiger presence in both Kanniyakumari and Srivilliputhur. Srivilliputhur Megamalai Tiger Reserve (SMTR) deputy director H Dileep Kumar told TNIE that Srivilliputhur is spread over 498 sq. km and has four forest ranges. “The tiger presence is recorded in three of the four ranges either before or after the census period.
In 2020, four tigers were directly captured in camera traps in Rajapalayam and Watrap ranges. Again in February 2022, our team along with a World Wildlife Fund (India) official found tiger pug marks in Srivilliputhur and Watrap ranges. Also, in February this year, we got a direct capture of one male tiger in a camera trap at Rajapalayam.”
The official said that just because no tiger was sighted in the camera traps laid during the census months of May and June in 2022 doesn’t mean tigers have gone locally extinct. Srivilliputhur has a minimum of 4-5 tigers and a carrying capacity of at least 8 to 10 tigers.
“We share a boundary with the Periyar tiger reserve in Kerala. A possible reason for zero tiger captures during census months would be local migration to adjacent Periyar forests. Our area would be dry and southwest monsoon would commence in Kerala in June and tigers would follow the herbivore movement,” Dileep said.
Kanniyakumari district forest officer and wildlife warden M Ilayaraja said that during a previous census conducted in 2018, a tiger was captured in a camera trap in Kaliyal range and in 2017 tiger death was reported in Pechiparai of the district.
“Kanniyakumari has 40,000 hectares, of which half of it falls in the buffer zone of Kalakkad Mundanthurai Tiger Reserve, where there is a confirmed tiger population of 11 to 14. Recently, our field staff have recorded tiger pug marks. But, it is true that direct sightings were not reported in any of the 106 locations where the camera traps were set up during the latest 2022 census.”
Chief Wildlife Warden Srinivas R Reddy also told TNIE in the wet evergreen forests it is very hard to sight a tiger. The prey base in the region is less since you don’t find much fodder underneath the tall trees unlike in open grasslands. The tiger here moves in much larger territory.
“Just because a tiger is not recorded in the camera traps, we can’t conclude it is locally extinct. We have to look for indirect signs etc. Since almost half of the Kanniyakumari forests are now in the buffer zone of KMTR, a repeat tiger census will be done in the area. If we don’t find signs of any tiger even in the next cycle then we have to see what can be done.”
As per the census report, the estimation exercise was carried out in three phases, Phase I entails data collection at beat scale by forest department staff across the country covering 10,146 grids (of 100 sq. km) followed by Phase III where the sampling is done at 174 sites encompassing 32,588 locations which resulted in 4.7 crore photographs having 97,399 tiger pictures.
Phase II is done at the Wildlife Institute of India which involves generating landscape-level data using remote sensing and secondary data sources. This was the largest survey done so far. The number of unique tigers photographed in 2022 was 3,080, while in 2018 it was 2,461. The minimum estimated population is 3,167.