NEW DELHI—Six months after India boasted that its tiger population was growing fast, conservationists on Wednesday said 41 big cats had already died this year and worried that the country was not doing enough to save them.
Despite awareness campaigns, India’s National Tiger Conservation Authority and the wildlife group Traffic say only seven of the cats died from natural causes, one was killed by authorities and the rest were illegally poached between January and August.
In January Indian environment authorities had claimed conservation efforts were working as the number of tigers in the country had risen to 2,226 in 2014, up from 1,706 counted in 2010.
Experts say the partial death toll proves India was not doing enough to protect the endangered predators, noting 66 tigers died in 2014. Of those which died naturally this year, two were killed in tiger battles, which experts say are becoming more frequent as the big cats vie for territory while their habitats shrink.
Wildlife experts say tigers are facing increasing threats to their roaming territory as their traditional forests were being cleared to make way for huge power projects, roads and human habitats, as the country pushes ahead with rapid industrialization and economic development. “We are losing buffer areas around the tiger reserves every day and this is worrisome,” said Shekhar Niraj, the head of Traffic-India.
Coupled with the decline in deer, wild boar and other smaller animals that tigers prey on, the loss of buffer areas outside tiger reserves was increasingly driving the cats to move outside their established territory into human settlements, Niraj said.
A century ago an estimated 100,000 tigers roamed India’s forests. Their numbers declined steadily till the 1970s, when India banned tiger hunting and embarked on a program to create special reserves and protected areas in national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. Conservation efforts began to pay off around 2010, when tiger numbers began to slowly rise.
India faces intense international scrutiny over its tiger-conservation efforts as it has nearly three-fourths of the world’s estimated 3,200 tigers. The illegal trade in tiger skin and body parts still remains a stubborn and serious threat.
Tiger organs and bones fetch high prices on the black market because of demand driven by traditional Chinese medicine practitioners.
India is also roping in celebrities to promote its tiger-conservation program. On Tuesday the western state of Maharashtra announced that it was appointing Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan as the state’s tiger ambassador to create awareness about its efforts to save the animals. In Indonesia, police have arrested four suspected poachers of a Sumatran tiger, an endangered species. The four were captured in a village in Aceh province’s Tamiang district on Saturday, three days after they were believed to have killed a four-year-old tiger. Lt. Col. Mirwazi of the Aceh police said late Monday that three of them were hunters, while the other acted as the seller.
Police confiscated the tiger’s hide and bones from the suspects.
He said the poachers used a deer trap to capture the tiger, so that its skin was not damaged.
Mirwazi said the suspects offered to sell the skin for 10 million rupiah (approximately $800) to police officers who disguised themselves as buyers after receiving tips from villagers about the poaching.
He said the four could be charged with violating a 1999 law on protection of natural resources, which carries a maximum five-year jail term.Sumatran tigers, distinguished by heavy black stripes on their orange coats, are the most critically endangered tiger subspecies. About 400 remain, down from 1,000 in the 1970s, because of forest destruction and poaching.
Image credits: AP/Deepak Sharma