The tigers today are dispersing over much greater distances than previously found. A latest study, has found evidence of long-range big cat dispersal of as much as 650 km between protected areas.
It has found that human settlements and unplanned infrastructure development are posing to be greater hurdles on tiger dispersal than distance.
The study called, “Connectivity of Tiger (Panthera tigris) Populations in the Human-Influenced Forest Mosaic of Central India” has been made by Uma Ramakrishnan from the National Center for Biological Sciences along with her associates.
It was carried out in six Protected Areas (PA’s) encompassing the major tiger populations of central India. These PAs situated at varying distances from each other are spread across three States. These include Melghat Tiger Reserve, Nagzira Wildlife Sanctuary and Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in the state of Maharashtra. The other three were the Pench Tiger Reserve, across both the states of Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh, Kanha Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh and Nagarjunasagar- Srisailam Tiger Reserve in the State of Andhra Pradesh.
From a conservation perspective, these findings suggest that urbanisation and unplanned development will reduce connectivity for tiger populations in Central India. To help maintain the connectivity and survival of tigers, management strategies should consider the effects of these features of the landscape.
Ramakrishnan further explains, “We non invasively sampled 55 tigers from different protected areas within this landscape using landscape genetic approaches based on fecal DNA from protected areas in the Central Indian landscape.”
The study has shown that tigers are dispersing much longer distances than has been previously recorded. Additionally, the analyses reveal that human footprints on the landscape (roads, settlements) negatively impact connectivity between populations.
According to the study, most wild tigers today live in small, isolated PA’s within human dominated landscapes in the India subcontinent. Future survival of tigers depends on increasing local population size, as well as maintaining connectivity between populations.
The study notes, while significant conservation effort has been invested in increasing tiger population size, few initiatives have focused on landscape-level connectivity and on understanding the effect different landscape elements have on maintaining connectivity.
The study has suggested future management strategies that aim at minimizing urban expansion between protected areas to maximize tiger connectivity. It has emphasized that future survival of big cats depends on increasing the connectivity between these areas via “tiger corridors.”
Apart from overall distance, there are a number of other factors that might limit this connectivity. This includes features of the landscape such as roads, availability of tiger habitat, and human habitation.