[For more than two years, a female tiger that the authorities had named T-1 stalked the hills of central India, where she was blamed for the deaths of at least 13 people. Last fall, hundreds of officers and veterinarian sharpshooters riding elephants tried to tranquilize her. When that failed, T-1 was shot and killed.]
By Kai Schultz
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Tigers at a reserve in
the Indian state of Maharashtra last year. The country now has
about 3,000 wild tigers,
according to a new estimate. Credit Bryan Denton
for The New York Times
|
NEW DELHI — India’s population of endangered Bengal tigers is on the rise,
officials said Monday.
According to a
government estimate, there are nearly 3,000 Bengal tigers in the wild in India,
a 33 percent increase since 2014. Wildlife experts say better safety monitoring
and stricter wildlife polices have helped the tiger population grow to its
largest in about two decades.
“Once the people of
India decide to do something, there is no force that can prevent them from
getting the desired results,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at a news
conference on Monday announcing the figures.
But as the number of
tigers has increased, so have the human-tiger conflicts in India, a country of
1.3 billion.
India has created
nearly two dozen tiger reserves in the last decade, but many are surrounded by
villages. As development projects shrink the space separating humans and
tigers, the animals are spilling out of reserves in search of prey — wild pigs,
cattle and sometimes people.
For more than two
years, a female tiger that the authorities had named T-1 stalked the hills of
central India, where she was blamed for the deaths of at least 13 people. Last
fall, hundreds of officers and veterinarian sharpshooters riding elephants
tried to tranquilize her. When that failed, T-1 was shot and killed.
Last week, a group
of villagers beat a tiger to death in the Pilibhit Tiger Reserve, about 200
miles east of New Delhi, after it attacked several people. In a disturbing
video of the incident, the tiger appeared to be trying to block the blows with
its paws. Four people were arrested and charged under a wildlife protection
law.
“Unless we have a
sound strategy to tackle these conflicts, tiger lynchings will continue,” said
Prerna Singh Bindra, a conservationist and the author of “The Vanishing:
India’s Wildlife Crisis.” “Forests are being fragmented. We are saying yes to
about 98 percent of development and other projects in protected areas. If we
keep cutting habitats, this tiger utopia is going to come crashing down.”
The tiger census
released on Monday, which covered nearly 150,000 square miles and tracked
“carnivore signs” using thousands of camera traps, found that India’s tiger
population rose to 2,967 in 2018, about 700 more than in 2014. The world has
only about 4,000 tigers left in the wild.
The report found
that tiger populations had increased across India, with the highest number in
Madhya Pradesh, a hot, shrubby state with more than 500 cats. Apart from the
camera traps, thousands of wildlife officials covered more than 300,000 miles
on foot to collect dung samples and take photographs from thick green canopies.
The authors of the
report, which was prepared by the central government’s National Tiger
Conservation Authority, called it “the world’s largest effort invested in any
wildlife survey.”
Valmik Thapar, a
prominent Indian naturalist and a wild tiger specialist, said the data seemed
mostly accurate and suggested a gradual return to numbers from the 1980s, when
India’s tiger population hovered around 4,000. He credited the rebound to closer
cooperation between state governments and wildlife experts. (Other experts said
the increase might relate to improved counting methods.)
But Mr. Thapar said
there was still a long way to go. Training for conservationists in many states
remains “abysmal,” he said.
Mr. Thapar said
India had yet to realize its potential as a wildlife tourism destination, which
would create jobs for some of the same villagers who are currently hostile
toward the cats.
And some parts of
eastern India are still losing tigers, despite additional funds intended to
save them. In several premier reserves, Mr. Thapar said, there are “no tigers
at all.”
“We need to focus on
doing something about these problems,” he said. “We must look after these
national treasures.”
Hari Kumar and
Jeffrey Gettleman contributed reporting.
