The number of tigers in Similipal has been found to be declining in recent years. This has sent environmentalists and animal-lovers of Mayurbhanj into a state of shock and worry.
According to tiger census conducted by the State Forest Department, when the number of tigers in Similipal in 1983 was 93, it was 94, 96, 95, 97, 98, 98, 99 and 101 in the years 1990, 1991, 1993, 1995, 1997, 1999, 2000 and 2004. And, sadly, it came down to 61 in 2009. Why and how did this happen, many ask.
This type of deterioration in the situation, notwithstanding the fact that “Similipal Tiger Reserve” has been functioning in the district since 1979, has further disturbed the tiger lovers.
The Similipal sanctuary, it may be pointed, covers a forest area of about 2,750 square kilometers in Mayurbhanj. 845 square km, out of this, is declared as the “core area”, which means “prohibited area”.
According to a wildlife report, want of habitat, tiger hunting, use of different body parts of tigers for preparing traditional medicine, deforestation, lack of food, lack of sufficient number of forest security guards, growing number of not-so-sensitive tourists and heightened activity of forest mafias are the reasons for this decline in the tiger population in Similipal.
The number of tigers in the Similipal, their favourite home, has dwindled down to a mere 28, of late.
Thus, if this alarming trend of decline in tiger population is not arrested immediately, the situation will be too serious to be contained, the observers here now feel.