There are 11 tigers in the eastern part of Rajaji national park and two tigers in the western part. However, due to factors not yet ascertained, tigers from the smaller eastern part of Rajaji park are not moving to the larger western part which also has more prey for the tiger than the eastern part.
The national park authorities hope to find the answer to this and improve wildlife management through a joint venture with the WWF which is aimed at improving protection and habitat of Rajaji park to double its tiger population by 2022.
According to the Rajaji park field director, SP Subudhi, the WWF has prepared a plan to help identify management gaps and improve protection measures.
"We need to meet the infrastructural need, improve patrolling technique, increase community participation and improve the condition of wildlife corridors. When it comes to patrolling we know that some areas are frequented but the difficult areas are seldom patrolled.
"There is no systematic information gathering which affects wildlife management. The WWF has come up with Special Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) for patrolling protocols and tools which will enable broad data collection on habitat, predators, prey base and other aspects and with those on patrol using Global Positioning System to mark the locations in their notes, in a month we will put the GPS data on the Rajaji map to ascertain which areas still need patrolling. We are aiming to ensure that the entire national park is patrolled once every three months," he said.
Referring to the tiger population, Subudhi said that there are 11 tigers (five males and six females) in the 250 square kilometres large eastern part of Rajaji whereas there are two tigresses in the 520 square kilometres large western part.
"The western part has abundant prey base and space but for some reason the tigers from the eastern part are not coming here. I can only speculate that this might be due to disturbance from human activities at Raiwala or due to resorts in the area. But we hope to find the reason for this phenomenon in the future with the implementation of SMART and other measures. The WWF will also act as a link between us and residents of fringe villages of which there are about 150 around Rajaji park.
"We cannot ensure wildlife protection if the fringe residents are hostile towards wildlife or our efforts. We are also focusing on improving the condition of wildlife corridors and plan to develop our posts in remote areas into model posts by providing solar power and basics for the convenience of our staff which will motivate them. With these and other measures, the aim is to double the tiger population in Rajaji park by 2022," he added.