New Delhi (NVI): India’s tiger population now stands at 2,967 which is 70 percent of the global tiger population, according to a detailed report of Tiger Census on the eve of Global Tiger Day, released by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change here today.
At the release of the detailed report, Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said, “Tiger is an incredible part of the nature and the increased number of the big cats in India reflects equilibrium in the nature.”
The environment minister said that tigers and other wildlife are a kind of soft power India has to show on the international front. He said that despite several constraints such as less landmass, India has eight percent of bio-diversity because the country has a culture of saving and preserving nature, trees and its wildlife.
Noting that wildlife is a country’s natural wealth, Javadekar said, “it is praiseworthy that India has 70 percent of world’s tiger population. The Minister mentioned India is tirelessly working with all 13 tiger range countries towards nurturing the tiger.”
Highlighting the keystone nature of the tiger, a poster on the presence of small cats was also released by the Environment Minister. “With the presence of nearly 30 percent of India’s tigers outside tiger reserves, India had embarked upon assessing management interventions through the globally developed Conservation Assured | Tiger Standards (CA|TS) framework, which will now be extended to all fifty tiger reserves across the country,” read a statement by the MoEFCC.
According to the detailed report of the fourth All India Tiger Estimation, abundance index of co-predators and other species has been carried out which hitherto was restricted only to occupancy.
Sex ratio of tigers in all camera trap sites has been carried out for the first time, as per the report.
Besides, anthropogenic effects on tiger population have been elaborated in a detailed manner and tiger abundance within pockets in tiger reserves has been demonstrated for the first time in the report.
Also present on the occasion, Minister of State for Environment, Babul Supriyo said, human-animal conflict can be avoided but it cannot be ruled out in the country. He said, frontline officials have done commendable job in raising the numbers of tiger in the country.
According to the detailed report of the fourth All India Tiger Estimation, abundance index of co-predators and other species has been carried out which hitherto was restricted only to occupancy.
Sex ratio of tigers in all camera trap sites has been carried out for the first time, as per the report.
Besides, anthropogenic effects on tiger population have been elaborated in a detailed manner and tiger abundance within pockets in tiger reserves has been demonstrated for the first time in the report.
The detailed report released today assesses the status of tigers in terms of spatial occupancy and density of individual populations across India.
In addition to the summary report released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the “Status of Tigers in India” in July 2019, the detailed report compares information obtained from the earlier three surveys (2006, 2010, and 2014) with data obtained from the 2018-19 survey to estimate population trends at country and landscape scales, patch colonization and extinction rates along with information on likely factors responsible for changes in tiger status at the fine spatial resolution of 100 km, the ministry said in a statement.
“The report evaluates the status of habitat corridors connecting major tiger populations and highlights vulnerable areas that require conservation attention for each landscape. The report provides information on major carnivores and ungulates regarding their distribution and relative abundance,” it said.
Apart from that, Javadekar also announced that his Ministry is working on a programme in which efforts would be made to provide water and fodder to animals in the forest itself to deal with the challenge of human-animal conflict which is causing deaths of animals.
“For this LIDAR based survey technology will be used for the first time. Lidar is a method for measuring distances by illuminating the target with laser light and measuring the reflection with a sensor,” the Ministry said in a statement.
Also present on the occasion, Minister of State for Environment, Babul Supriyo said, human-animal conflict can be avoided but it cannot be ruled out in the country. He said, frontline officials have done a commendable job in raising the numbers of tiger in the country.
-ARK
