Year 2010 is the “Year of the Tiger” in the Chinese calendar. Tiger conservationists fear that this could steeply increase the demand for tiger parts and encourage poaching and smuggling out of India. Clearly, protecting India’s tigers must become a bilateral agenda for India and China. For all the good work done, and the special attention given by the government’s highest functionaries, Project Tiger has not been able to prevent the decline in India’s tiger population from 1,800, when it was launched, to just around 1,000 today. The year 2009 alone saw the loss of 120 tigers, the highest in a single year in last decade. Three more tigers have died in the first few days of this year. These numbers speak volumes about the failure of the Project Tiger in achieving its mission. World-wide, too, these striped big cats are fighting a losing battle for survival. Nearly 95 per cent of them belonging to the nine major sub-species of the main tiger species Panthera tigris have perished in the last century. Little wonder then that the World Wildlife Fund has categorised the tiger as the most endangered animal species. In India, few tigers are left in the wild. Worse still, 17 of the total 37 tiger reserves are either already tiger-less or are on the verge of becoming so. A climate change-driven rise in the sea level, moreover, may wipe out the tigers in the Sunderbans in West Bengal by either killing them or driving them away only to fall prey to poachers.
Unabated poaching due to rampant smuggling of tiger parts to China and shrinking habitat for tigers are the main reasons for the dwindling tiger population. With the South China tiger (Panthera tigris Amoyensis), also called Xiamen tiger, having already gone into extinction, the prices of tiger body parts in China, the biggest market for tiger parts, are shooting up to serve as an incentive for poachers and smugglers who are moving them from India to China via Nepal and Myanmar. Mercifully, China now seems willing to discuss the smuggling issue with India. This opportunity needs to be grabbed.
Conservation of the populations of carnivores, of which tigers constitute a prime species, is imperative for ensuring natural balance in wildlife and health of forests. A spurt in the numbers of herbivores in the absence of preying animals results in fast denudation of green cover by them as has happened in the wildlife sanctuaries which have lost all their tigers. Forest departments seem to be disregarding the preservation of wildlife, concentrating more on other activities. Shockingly, most forest corridors which provided the vital link between one tiger landscape and another have been lost because of habitat modifications carried out by these departments. This prevents tigers from leading their natural life by moving from one catchment to another. Moreover, the state forest departments usually lack funds for wildlife management. Nearly half of the posts of forest guards are lying unfilled. The average age of these guards is estimated at 50 years. Besides, they lack fast-moving vehicles and modern weaponry to match those used by the poachers. This apart, the presence of human habitats within and on the fringes of protected forests provides safe heavens to the poachers and smugglers. Many forest dwellers, who had been shifted out of forests, are said to have moved back to their original habitations after the enactment of forest dwellers and tribals rights Act. Clearly, India needs to do more at home even as it reaches out to China for support in protecting the tiger.
