All may not be well with the tigers, despite rise in numbers in the country or elsewhere. A report released by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has warned that the big cats are still not out of danger due to shrinking forest land which are converted into motorways and other infrastructure that cut through their habitat.
The report called, “Fierce but Fragile, Coexistence in a changing world”, also identified human-wildlife conflict as a key problem in the Terai regions of of India and Nepal, stressing on well-developed conservation programmes.
“In the future, situation for tigers could worsen as land is converted into industrial-scale palm oil plantations, and motorways and other infrastructure cut through tiger habitats. This leads to isolated and fragmented tiger populations which suffer from social and genetic problems,” said the report.
It pointed out that if the conservation efforts succeed in boosting tiger numbers and simultaneously human populations continue to grow, the potential for conflict between tigers and humans would only increase and needs need to be managed.
The problems tigers face exemplify those facing many wildlife species today, including elephants, rhinos and lions.
Squeezed into ever-shrinking habitats, these large, charismatic and often dangerous animals no longer live separately from humans, but need to to co-exist with them, it said.
Observing that tigers need to breed and hunt in relatively undisturbed core areas, the report said they also pass through land used for agriculture, commercial forestry or inhabited by forest communities.
“Here, inevitably, they come into contact with people. With shrinking forest cover and fewer prey, tigers may end up hunting livestock and are often killed or captured in retaliation,” points out the report.
India is home to nearly 70 per cent of the world’s big cats in the wild. According to the latest 2014 census, the country has 2,226 tigers in the wild across the country, a 30 per cent in increase over the 2010 estimation of 1,706 tigers. There are about 3,890 tigers in the wild across the world as against more than one lakh in 1900.
IUCN says its Integrated Tiger Habitat Conservation Programme (ITHCP) aims to ensure the survival of tigers in the wild by working with local communities to reduce human-tiger conflict and the over-exploitation of forests, as well as managing tiger habitats and combating poaching.