Should India Cap Tiger Population

In April 2023, India announced that its wild tiger population has increased to a healthy 3,167 from just 1,400 in 2006. However, almost 30 per cent of the tigers roam outside the protected areas and regularly enter human habitations. There is also concern over shrinking tiger corridors-patches that connect two large areas of forest-due to the construction of linear infrastructure such as railway lines, highways and canals. Moreover, tigers are believed to be leaving forests in pursuit of herbivores that are increasingly foraying into human-dominated landscapes since the natural flora on which they survive is overtaken by invasive species such as lantana, a plant introduced to India by the British. Does this mean that India's forests are nearing their carrying capacity to support tigers, who are apex predators? Should the country consider capping its tiger population or look at other solutions?

- RAJAT GHAI

"India's tiger claims are faulty"

K ULLAS KARANTH EMERITUS DIRECTOR, CENTRE FOR WILDLIFE STUDIES

India's tiger bureaucracy recently claimed that the country has attained a wild tiger population of about 3,000 and that their population should now be capped at 3,5004,000. Both claims are scientifically faulty.

The tiger bureaucracy 1,800 tigers in the early 1970s and this number rose steadily to 3,600 by 2002, before suddenly crashing to 1,400 by 2006. The crash happened because in 2005, a taskforce appointed by the then Prime Minister replaced the widely followed practice of using pugmarks to count tiger numbers with a new national tiger estimation (NTE) process. The country has stuck with NTE despite several criticisms. Using it, the tiger bureaucracy had cleverly "reset" the base tiger numbers from 3,600 in 2002 to an improbable low of 1,400 in 2006, thus setting the stage for claims of successes in subsequent years. At the same time, instead of making the raw data available for public scrutiny, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) now only releases glossy summary reports every four years.

India's current reserves cover only 20 per cent of the 380,000 sq km of forests that can support tigers. The wild animal's population is at very low densities in the forests of Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and the northeastern states. So, the country has a carrying capacity of 10,000 to 15,000 tigers.

The present compassionate but unscientific solutions to emergent conflicts, such as feeding and rescuing incapacitated wild tigers, artificially enriching tiger habitats, and above all, translocating "problem" tigers, should be abandoned. Only then can we attain the important goal of rewilding viable populations of our national animal across its former range.