Discipline of compassion: Keep the dogs away from the tigers, please

INDIA’S tiger story is one of the great conservation achievements of our time. From 1,411 in 2006, the national estimate rose to 3,682 in 2022, with the country holding nearly three-fourths of the world’s wild tigers.

- RAJNISH KUMAR SINGH

This is not merely a wildlife statistic; it is proof that a large, crowded democracy can still protect an apex predator when science, law, field staff and the public come together.

But success has created a new challenge. As tiger numbers rise in strongholds, young animals disperse in search of territory. They move through buffer zones, territorial forests, village edges, grazing patches, sugarcane fields, roads, tourism zones and human settlements. The tiger does not recognize the neat administrative line between a protected core and a human-dominated landscape. Increasingly, its future depends not only on what happens inside reserves, but also on what circulates around them. One of the least discussed risks in this wider landscape is the free-ranging dog. This is not an argument against dogs; rather, it is an argument against abandonment disguised as compassion. A vaccinated, sterilized and cared-for dog inside a home or accountable shelter is a companion animal. A free-ranging dog moving between garbage dumps, village streets, carcass sites, forest trails and reserve buffers is part of an ecological and epidemiological network. It can carry pathogens into landscapes where endangered species have little defense.

The scale itself should worry us. The official 20th Livestock Census placed India’s stray dog population at about 15.3 million in 2019; independent estimates have placed the number of free-roaming dogs much higher, in the range of tens of millions. The public health signal is already visible. India remains endemic for rabies, and the WHO has stated that the country accounts for a large share of global rabies deaths.