INDIA: Big Cats Fast Disappearing From Tiger Sanctuaries

By Ranjit Devraj Reprint | | Print |

Ranjit Devraj

NEW DELHI, Feb 25 2005 (IPS) - At Sariska National Park, one of India’s best known tiger sanctuaries, the search these days is no longer for the feline. Ironically it is for their droppings.

Conservationists hope that this will give some indication that a few stray tigers have managed to escape poachers that have virtually decimated the tiger population in this 881 square kilometer national park in western Rajasthan state.

Unfortunately, however, no one seems to be having much luck. A 300-man team that combed Sariska from Feb. 1-15 managed to collect eleven samples of which nine turned out to be leopard dung.

”I would not hazard a guess on how old even those two samples actually are,” a pessimistic sounding Ranjit Talwar, coordinator of World Wide Fund (WWF)’s tiger cell told IPS in an interview.

”Normally the scat shrivels up and gets eaten by insects but there has been rain in Sariska and this may have re-moisturised the samples,” he said adding that he was more inclined to go by a complete absence of pugmarks or scratch marks on trees in the sanctuary.

For Talwar what appears to have happened to the big cats of Sariska over the last five months is nothing short of a catastrophe and an ominous sign for the future of the tiger in India’s grossly ill-managed sanctuaries.

Forest officials had reported 15 tigers in Sariska at the last wildlife count conducted in the park in June 2004 and that figure was already down from the average of 25 tigers during previous annual counts in the park that is part of a nationwide ‘Project Tiger’ – a much lauded conservation initiative.

To compound matters, at the nearby Ranthambore National Park – also covered by Project Tiger – at least 18 tigers out of the known population of 47 tigers are now reported missing by Tiger Watch, a local non-government organisation (NGO).

Sariska and Ranthambore were formerly exclusive hunting reserves of the famed royal dynasties of Rajasthan and are now major tourist attractions attracting wildlife lovers that have included former U.S. president Bill Clinton who actually managed to spot a tiger during a visit to Ranthambore in March 2000.

India is estimated to have more than 3,000 tigers, accounting for about half the world’s tiger population. And conservationists are seriously worried about their rapidly dwindling numbers.

Shooting for recreation is a distant memory from the British Raj, but there are now other, less easily controlled threats to India’s big cats.

Rapid population growth and rural development such as the construction of mammoth dams in some areas are destroying the natural habitats of tigers. Although trafficking in wildlife products is banned in India, poaching of tigers for their skin, bones and body parts used in Chinese medicine has exacerbated the problem.

Talwar said after the latest decimation, Sariska could no longer be described as a tiger reserve and Ranthambore might follow suit unless the Rajasthan government takes urgent steps.

So far, the best response of the state government has been to set up a high powered six- person committee that includes Belinda Wright, executive director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, Valmik Thapar, a globally known tiger expert and Prof. V.B. Mathur from the government-run Wildlife Institute of India.

While the committee is expected to release its report on the Sariska disaster in the next three months, the early signs are not encouraging given that even carcasses of the tigers were missing indicating the handiwork of systematic poaching.

”We are hopeful that there are still some tigers left in Sariska and we can get the correct picture only after we conduct another survey from May to June this year,” said Laxminarayan Dave, minister for environment and forests in the Rajasthan state government.

Dave’s optimism stemmed largely from reports of villagers having heard the alarming shrieks let out by birds and monkeys when they sense the presence of tigers around them.

Talwar who led a WWF-India ream to Sariska between Feb 11-12, on the invitation of the Rajasthan state government, came away with a different view. He concluded in an internal report that if any tigers remain, their numbers are likely to be small.

”Cattle are grazing freely in areas where once tigers roamed. And head loads of wood are being removed by villagers even from areas where the personnel of the forest department are present on a permanent basis,” the report, a copy of which was made available to IPS, said.

While the forest staff was ”extremely reluctant” to give any explanation for the disappearance of the tigers, they agreed that it happened between July and December 2004.

”Poaching during the defined period can be the principal cause for the sudden disappearance of the tiger. Negligence by forest staff in regular monitoring is likely. Connivance of the lower staff with the poachers cannot be ruled out,” the report said.

WWF-India recommended that villages on the fringe of the Sariska National Park be relocated. ”This has been pending since many years and needs to be executed forthwith.”

But going by past records it may be too much to expect that India would seriously heed that recommendation or indeed make proactive moves that are urgently needed to save its wildlife.

Thousands of letters have been written to the government and by at least two world leaders. Clinton and even British Prime Minister Tony Blair have brought up the issue of tiger protection, as a matter of international concern, during official meetings with the Indian government. But to no avail.

”India has proven that it does not care about international concerns,” said Wildlife Protection Society of India’s Belinda Wright.

”Exasperated by India’s sluggishness in enacting appropriate legislation, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) – the largest wildlife treaty in the world – suspended India from the Convention on Dec. 22, 2004, along with Gambia,” she said.

Ironically, Project Tiger itself has been growing since its launch in 1973 to cover 28 reserves spread across India. It currently has an annual budget of 7.5 million U.S. dollars although much of that money goes into forest staff salaries.

According to estimates made by the Wildlife Protection Society of India, each one of the 1,576 tigers that live in these reserves should be guarded by at least three forest staff. About 5,000 dollars a year, the society said, should be spent on trying to protect each tiger because they are so vulnerable to poachers.

”Clearly, the money is not being spent effectively. The lack of accountability and independent audit are glaring lacunae. It is widely known that state governments are not releasing funds, nor are they filling posts or thoroughly investigating tiger deaths, ”Wright said.

On Jan. 31 police in the national capital, a major hub for the international wildlife trade, made a startling seizure that included two tiger and 39 leopard skins; and various parts from tigers including paws, claws, canines and bones.

Tiger parts move through well-known smuggling routes from India through Nepal and Tibet into China where they are in high demand as ingredients for traditional medicines. Apart from China, the demand for tiger parts also comes from countries like Japan, Vietnam, Laos, the two Koreas, and even the West.

According to WWF-India’s Talwar every tiger product, including the scat, fetches high prices for supposed medicinal properties and that is what is spelling the doom of this magnificent animal even in supposedly protected reserves.