Missing roar: Why rising tiger deaths met with a whimper

The roars of 127 tigers were silenced in 2021. This whopping 20 per cent jump in the number of tiger deaths from 106 fatalities in the previous year was ironically met with some lame reasoning, but mostly silence. The deaths that should have triggered several alarm bells, at least in the wildlife and environment circles, went largely ignored.

In fact the government’s disclosure on tiger deaths, as it laid out the figure in Rajya Sabha in February, was so full of clichés and banalities that it hardly merited a discussion elsewhere. Mainstream media did not find it newsworthy.

Placing the figures in the Upper House, Minister for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav, gave “many reasons” for the deaths. The primary causes, according to him, were old age, infighting (among tigers), electrocution and poaching. Yadav’s reasons hid more than they revealed. And the problem with not knowing the real reasons is that they do not lead to finding real solutions.

When facts cloud reality

Figures don’t lie, but they can very well obfuscate the real picture. This is one of the biggest yearly tolls that India’s flagship species has seen ever since the launch of Project Tiger in 1973. Ironically, the deaths took place within two years of India recording an impressive 33 per cent increase in the population of its wild tigers (from 2,226 in 2014 to 2,967 in 2019). It created a spontaneous nationwide euphoria. Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi had chimed in: “Baghon Mein Bahar Hai. (Tigers are growing like flowers blossom in spring.)”

The reality, however, seems to be telling us: “Baghon Mein Daraar Hai (The garden is cracking).”

Interestingly, the cracks in the all-is-well tiger story were laid bare by none other than the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and Wildlife Institute of India (WII), which have been jointly conducting tiger census in India for many years now. Their warning came in 2019, the year of the tiger’s successful fight-back. The NTCA released two reports: The first one, on the nationwide tiger estimate, hogged the limelight. And rightly so. After all, once of the most beloved animals on the planet had made a staggering comeback in India—from an all-time low of 1,411 in 2006, to 2,967 in just 13 years. The numbers reflected as much on the tiger’s spirit of survival as on the effective wildlife management inside most of our national parks and reserve forests.

All is not well for tigers

But this report reflected half the reality. To the NTCA’s credit, it clearly held that all was not well for the health of Indian tigers and there were issues of mismanagement and uncontrolled tourism at several places. It also underscored an equally ominous scenario which could sooner or later threaten the Indian tiger’s future once again.

What the NTCA, and several other well-meaning environmental bodies, have been pointing to is a gradual erosion of the Critical Tiger Habitat (CTH) outside the protected national parks and sanctuaries. Once a tiger moves out of the reserve, it’s at the mercy of several forces which act against it.

In 2011, well-known Broken Tail of Ranthambore got knocked down by a speeding train—a full 100 miles away from the tiger reserve. In 2019, a tigress and her two cubs moved out of the safe confines of Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra and met a similar fate. The same year, a tiger died of starvation in—of all places—Gujarat, which has no history of housing a tiger. In 2020, Solo, the popular tigress of Bandhavgarh, and her cub met a grisly death recently after she moved into the buffer zone and was allegedly poisoned.

The list is long, but a common thread runs through most of these tiger deaths. A buffer zone, unless managed properly by the forest authorities, can be a very dangerous place for a tiger to sneak into. Often, old and injured tigers are forced to move inside buffer zones after losing the battle of territory with the stronger tigers. This constitutes an important part of a tiger’s lifecycle, and very few manage to escape it.

Experts speak

Out of 127 tiger deaths in 2021, the maximum deaths (42) took place in Madhya Pradesh. Maharashtra occupied the second slot with 27 deaths and Karnataka the third with 15.

Deepak Talan, a wildlife expert involved in conservation efforts around Bandhavgarh, says that over 30 per cent of the buffer area has been destroyed. “Illegal felling of trees and clandestine operations by numerous brick-kilns in the buffer zone have seriously disturbed the ecology of Bandhavgarh. The chances of a tiger’s survival here are quite slim,” he points out.

According to Talan, vast tracks of teak forest around Panna Tiger Reserve in MP have fallen prey to the “furniture lobby”, which is proliferating in that part of the state. “With buffer zones being systematically wiped out all across the country, how do you expect the big cat to thrive here,” he asks.

The second NTCA report of 2019, which did not get the attention it deserved, minced no words in talking about the dangers facing tigers. Ranthambore in Rajasthan is the prime destination for tiger tourists. And this is what the NTCA has to say about it: “Currently, the priority of the tiger reserve is tourism, and there is little focus on protection, scientifically planned habitat interventions and regular monitoring of various aspects of tiger reserve management. The focus needs to change.”

As suggested by the Wildlife Institute of India and a large number of wildlife experts, two of the most important steps for protecting tigers entail securing critical tiger habitats and setting up tiger corridors between two reserves, to enable the big cat to move freely and escape the many dangers it would face otherwise. Sadly, not much has been done on these fronts.

On Sariska, the first national park of India to lose all its tigers, the NTCA has been far less charitable. In its report, released over a decade after the reintroduction of tigers here, it points out: “Though over a decade has passed since the first batch of founder population was reintroduced in the area, Sariska is at risk of losing its tigers once again, due to the slow growth of tiger population.”

But not everything is lost for the Indian tiger. It hasn’t yet reached the end of the rope. For Dr H S Pabla, former chief wildlife warden of Madhya Pradesh, the situation is not as gloomy as it’s being made out to be. “I see nothing alarming in the rising number of tiger deaths. It only proves that their population too is growing. Death always accompanies life. Secondly, just one year’s figures don’t make a trend. For that, one has to wait for a few years. If I see the tiger population falling and the deaths going up by next three-four years, I would be concerned,” he said.

Dr Pabla, however, also stressed that the time to revisit tiger conservation in India has arrived. “What we may be witnessing now is a problem of plenty,” he adds. Dr Pabla, and former Project Tiger chief Dr Rajesh Gopal, pointing out that the carrying capacity of tigers in the protected forests could have saturated. Being a territorial animal, a healthy tiger does not move outside of its territory or allows another tiger on its turf.

India’s tiger carrying capacity, maintains Dr Gopal, is packed and the country’s forests cannot hold more tigers.

He adds that ultimately it’s the public opinion which will decide the fate of tigers in India. “You can’t save tigers unless the public wants it to be protected. Look at what happened in Odisha’s Satkosia Tiger Reserve. Two tigers were brought here from Madhya Pradesh in 2018, in the first ever inter-state relocation of tigers in the country. While one of them was killed by poachers, the second one—a female—killed two people. The forest department had to bear the brunt of people’s anger and the tigress was sent back to MP,” he said.

It takes two to tango. The tiger needs people’s love and affection to thrive as much as people need tigers to ensure the ecological balance is not thrown off gear.

As Jim Corbett, writing in his classic work Man-Eaters of Kumaon remarked, “A tiger is a large-hearted gentleman with boundless courage and that when he is exterminated—as exterminated he will be unless public opinion rallies to his support—India will be poorer, having lost the finest of her fauna.”