International Tiger Day on July 29 once again emphasized on the need to save the majestic animal from getting extinct. MUSBA HASHMI chats up wildlife experts to bring interesting stories, facts about the predator and bust some myths along the way
Tigers love water and are rarely found far from water — one of the few cats that does. How many of us knew it? Not many, for sure. This is not all. They have spiny tongues. Spine-like structures on the tongue of a tiger help them extract muscle tissues from the bone during feeding.
Such interesting facts, if told during a jungle safari, would definitely make our tiger sightings worth it. But unfortunately, this is not the kind of information we look forward to on safaris. After all, who wants to waste time on gaining knowledge instead of searching for the stripped predator. And why not, since sighting a tiger in the middle of a jungle is a sight to behold. And if you are lucky enough to have a closer look, those two profound eyes will make you forget everything else and delve deep into the royalty of the majesty.
But, fret not. If you missed these facts, put your seat belts on and get set for an informatory ride.
Though the tiger is the largest among the cat family, the cubs are born blind and it is only after a couple of weeks that they open their eyes. Interesting enough? Here is one more.
It is a known fact that the tiger is the only cat with a striped coat, however the stripes are not just on the fur but on the skin too.
Killing by myth
While the number of tigers has increased for the first time in their conservation history, WWF says that there is still a long way to go. Currently, the total population of tigers around the world is known to be at 3,900. A silver lining is that around 3,000 of those wild tiger populations are in India.
However, with the increase in the numbers of the species, there is an increase in the myths surrounding them.
“The most common myth is that once a tiger devours human flesh it cultivates a taste for it and becomes a “man-eater”. This is extreme anthropomorphizing. Second, you can tell a “man-eating” tiger by looking in its eyes,” Prameek Kannan, Senior Biologist — Western Indian Tiger Landscape, Wildlife and Habitats Division, World Wildlife Fund for Nature -India (WWF-India), points out.
There is, of course, more. Tiger’s whiskers and claws bring good luck. “If these whiskers and claws are responsible for tigers getting killed, how can those bring good luck for humans?,” asks Meraj Anwar, Coordinator — species conservation, Terai Arc Landscape, WWF India.
Tiger bones are a source of Chinese traditional medicines and such claims have no scientific backup in terms of efficacy, Anwar adds.
Sunit Kr Das, Senior Project Officer, Brahmaputra Landscape, WWF India, says that many believe that humans are a common prey of tigers. But it is not true. “Except man-eaters, tigers normally avoid the human areas and confrontation,” he tells you.
Another common myth, Das says, is that modern tigers are descendants of prehistoric saber-tooth. “But actually present tigers are not descendants of prehistoric saber-toothed tigers. Despite the misleading name, the two are not closely related,” Das explains.
Brace yourself for some more. And apparently the most interesting of all. “During the full moon night, when the jungle has pindrop silence, langurs atop a tree are hurdled close to each other. Their shadows are being casted on the ground due to the strong moonlight. A tiger nearby on the prowl, slowly makes his way towards the tree where the langurs are resting. He cautiously chooses his victim and places his paw on the chosen langur’s shadow. The tiger lets out a mighty roar killing the langur instantly and dropping it dead on the ground. The tiger claims its kill and walks away like nothing had happened and once again there is pindrop silence all around the jungle,” Devavrat Pawar, Project officer — Species conservation, Terai Arc Landscape — Dehradun Program office, WWF India, mentions.
Dangerous in danger
The big cats, however, are not as safe as they should be. There are several threats that they are facing.
“One of the biggest threats that these cats are facing is poaching — in poorly protected areas — both due to poor enforcement by the Government and poor local community support for living alongside tigers. Second, poaching of wild prey - both for subsistence (remote areas with few alternatives), sport (in some areas hunting traditions are carried on for sport even when other alternatives are available), and trade (bush-meat trade). Tigers may also occasionally be killed as by-catch in traps set for ungulates. Additionally, depleting prey may force tigers to target livestock for subsistence, which brings them into conflict with people,” Kannan tells you.
Not only this, but conflict with people is another major threat to the species. “Tigers may kill livestock and pose a threat to people in shared landscapes, when local support for the same is poor, or Government mechanisms to compensate are inefficient or inadequate, locals may kill tigers and other wildlife in retaliation — by poisoning or electrocution and other means,” Kannan explains.
Adding to the threat list is rapid land transformation. The fragmentation of multi-use landscapes by infrastructure, agriculture and urbanisation reduces habitat connectivity for tigers, and can make populations isolated and jeopardize their long-term survival. Additionally, habitat-loss also reduces the overall habitat available to tigers which escalates human-tiger conflict.
“With the ever-increasing human population, there is a lot of pressure on our natural resources. Large scale habitat destruction followed by unplanned development have decimated most of our forests and prime tiger habitats, forcing tigers to live in smaller habitats where they often encounter humans. This negative interaction with humans puts the lives of both tigers and humans in grave danger. Tigers need large territories with ample prey and when there is not adequate prey in the region, tigers are forced to venture out of the forest in search of easy prey i.e., livestock, dogs and others. Habitat destruction along with illegal hunting of prey are the prime threats to the survival of tigers in India,” says Pawar.
A quick fact again. No two tigers have the same stripe pattern — these are used by scientists and wildlife managers to tell individuals apart and keep track of their movements and populations.
And one more. Though famed as loners, many male tigers actively engage in parental care — a male may have litters with multiple partners and may visit each of them and spend quality time with their progeny and mates. These may include hunting and sharing kills - a family group may even be able to take down larger prey as a collective, than a single tiger usually does.
An essential part of ecosystem
Every species is an essential part of the ecosystem, but apex predators like tigers, because of their position in the food chain can have a disproportionately large impact. The movements of apex predators like tigers influence the movement patterns of their prey — deer, antelope, wild cattle and monkeys. These potential prey species will sound off alarm calls, on the approach of a predator — at which they all flee.
“This so-called — landscape of fear, in turn shapes the vegetation growth and regeneration patterns across the landscape. Prey will often leave an area or avoid one with a lot of predator activity — or following a recent kill instance. This may allow vegetation to re-grow — different species respond differently to browsing by herbivores in different ways. Respite periods from the same allows different patterns of regeneration and growth that may in turn affect other ecosystem services that include nutrient cycling and hydrology. Therefore, apex predators such as tigers can have a cascading, top-down effect, and their disappearance from an ecosystem has a suite of cascading effects that creates ripples across the ecosystem,” says Kannan.
Anwar adds that in the last two decades, bottled drinking water got popularised among the elites first and then among middle class people. Similarly, in the second wave of COVID-19 in India and abroad, the importance of oxygen was realised by all of us. Tiger habitats or forest ecosystems are perennial sources of fresh drinking water as well as of oxygen. “Bottled water or oxygen in a canister cannot suffice our need of free flowing fresh water and oxygen coming out of forests. Tiger sits as a top predator in the ecological pyramid and provides umbrella protection to all of secondary carnivores, herbivores and primary producers i.e plants and trees,” says Anwar.
Pawar agrees with Anwar and says that the cat needs our immediate attention.
“To me, no other animal on earth creates as much awe as the tiger. A graceful being coupled with strength and fierceness, today this big cat deserves our immediate attention. With threats of poaching, habitat fragmentation, and conflict with humans, tigers today stand as a symbol of conservation epitomizing the problems of vanishing wildlife and fragmented habitats. Ultimately, wherever there is a healthy tiger population, there are healthy forests teeming with wildlife — and a flourishing forest not only benefits wildlife but also humans,” explains Pawar.
The complexities
Kannan recalls: “I was working as a biologist in a multi-use reserve forest in Maharashtra that harbors a healthy, breeding tiger population, living alongside a couple of million people. I was called to a spot with forest staff on an incident of a tiger attacking a group of people, killing one, and injuring a few more severely. When we visited the victims at the hospital, some of those in that same party exclaimed, “it was because of our fault that the tiger attacked, we knew of its presence, and yet we persisted, we were asking for trouble, it was our mistake, not the animal’s.” This kind of response left me awestruck!”
Another instance in the same region, where a tiger had attacked and killed a woman in a field. “The forest guard claimed the owners of the field were well aware of the tiger in the area, and the staff worked in tandem with them - warning them of tiger movements in the area. The farmers, he claimed, actually welcomed the presence of tigers and leopards in their fields — they kept the herbivores away — and they could get a good night’s sleep. He claimed this attack happened because a group of people not from that area but further afield encountered the tiger and took it upon themselves to chase the tiger. The tiger charged and took down the victim as it was making its escape, unfortunately, the victim died on the spot with the force of the attack,” Kannan tells you.
Kannan says in both these instances, he got the first-hand experience of how complex human-tiger relations are.
Human-tiger co-existence needed
The way forward for tiger conservation, Kannan says, is to facilitate better human-tiger co-existence across multi-use areas. “These include — working on protecting natural habitat connectivity, mitigating costs incurred by local people from wildlife, and also using smart technology — CCTV cameras, mass text messaging services, among others, to create awareness on the movements of potentially dangerous wildlife in shared spaces — to avoid conflict situations,” he says.
Das says that with the current conservation effort we are getting a positive result. No doubt the numbers are increasing. “But still so many gaps are in the entire system and we need to fill those with our best effort,” opines Das .
Following the 2018 All India Tiger Estimation Exercise, which happens once in four years, and is also considered to be the world largest wildlife survey covering an area of 381,000 sq km of forested habitats across 18 states where tigers are found and involving a foot survey of 5.22 lakh km, India announced their tiger numbers to the world — as many as 2,967 tigers in the wild, making India the country with most tigers in the wild. The population has increased by nearly 33 per cent since the last census in 2014 when the total estimate was 2,226. India reached its Tx2 Goals way before the deadline year of 2022 and everyone seemed to be happy.
“But, looking at a bigger picture, according to the The Status of Tigers in India Report-2018, ‘The occupancy of tigers in India has changed significantly from 88,000-89,000 sq km to 40,000 sq km since the year 2014’. This significant drop in tiger-occupied areas in just four years is a big concern. It explains India’s poor connectivity between protected areas (Tiger Reserves) and Reserve Forests which acts as a corridor for tigers and other wildlife. Shrinking presence of tigers outside tiger reserves in the country is an important issue which needs be addressed immediately. Currently in India, such corridors, Reserve Forests are not legally protected and a policy decision to protect these at the highest level is required. Better habitat connectivity ensures dispersal of wildlife from one protected area to another protected area, boosts biodiversity in degraded ecosystems and safeguards genetic flow between populations, thus decreasing the chances of diseases caused by inbreeding,” Pawar tells you.
Project cat to the rescue
In 2016, Discovery India partnered with World Wide Fund for Nature to support a global effort to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022. In India, the partnership with WWF India includes the teams’ bold endeavors to introduce nylon-net tiger fences in the 24 Parganas Forest Division in Sundarbans as the fencing keeps tigers from wandering into villages near the forests, which in turn will reduce the wandering of Royal Bengal Tigers into towns around the Sunderbans.
Additionally, the introduction of protective designs to decrease negative human-wildlife interactions in villages across the Corbett Tiger Reserve and the Amangarh Tiger Reserve. These measures incorporate early warning systems, solar powered fences, and lookouts. Restoration and reinforcement of the fence to prevent negative human-tiger interactions, and ultimately, save the lives of both people and tigers. A floating camp and speed boat are also being provided toward the West Bengal Forest Directorate, to speed up the response time of the forest personnel during the crisis.
