When I was growing up, there were far more tigers, even in Nashik district[1]. One of my most vivid memories from growing up is when we were driving to a near by place called Bhandardara. My father was in charge of constructing a tunnel to store water for a hydroelectric power plant and we took this trip many times. We were driving early morning and at around 6.30am, our driver stopped as he could see a tiger cub lying on the street. Our guess was a vehicle had hit it and it needed help. But we could not risk getting out of the car in case the mother shows up. This is before mobile telephones (circa 1994). All we could do was to turn back and reach nearest police station and call forest department for help. Sadly the cub never made it, it was run over and died long before we came across it. Often it is said that we dont always see change in environment as it happens slowly over generation, but drop in tiger population happened very fast. Even though there are no tigers left in my district, I am very glad the population is rising elsewhere in India.
A bit unrelated but this reminded me of my hike to mullayanagiri about 15 years ago. We were a group of 12 and our guide was leading the way and was a good 0.5km ahead of us. All of a sudden the guide was running back towards us like no tomorrow. We asked him what happened and he said he saw a tiger cub. We got so excited and wanted to see it. He said this is no joking matter and that if a cub is all alone, the mother is somewhere nearby and will rip us all apart in no time even if we are no threat. The tone in which he said it still makes me shiver and we ran for our lives :)
> Mr Modi said the results of this tiger census would make "every Indian happy".
This isn't an exaggeration: Tigers are interwoven in to the Indian (and Bangladeshi?) psyche [0] owing mostly to the overwhelming guilt of almost singlehandedly causing extinction of these beasts. As the article states, in the 20th Century over 80,000 Tigers were killed in undivided India-- They were mostly demonised in tales of yesteryears [1] and terrorised the populace due to their aggressive behaviour and man-eating tendencies.
There's 2,900 of them now, but a long way away from 80,000. May they burn bright forever [2].
There is a slight insinuation in your comment that it was ignorant villagers who killed off large number of tigers due to population pressures. Superstition and a reaction against man-eating tigers were not the cause of the near extinction. They were intentionally hunted down by the British and the local Maharajas for "sport". Tigers were hunted mostly during the British era.
> insinuation in your comment that it was ignorant villagers who killed
I'm sorry but I don't see which sentence makes you think that: esp the ignorant villagers part.
> hunted down by the British and the local Maharajas for "sport"
The article too points this out. And at the Raj Mahals (Palaces of the Kings) of the Mysore State there was indeed a display of photographs, pictures of Tiger kills by not just the Rajas but also by visiting dignitaries.
Additionally, it wasn't uncommon to have Tigers killed, back then, due to danger to human lives. And the Tiger hunters were celebrated heroes.
> Additionally, it wasn't uncommon to have Tigers killed, back then, due to danger to human lives. And the Tiger hunters were celebrated heroes.
But then why do you say in your previous comment that there is an overwhelming sense of guilt in the public psyche? There is no such guilt; people are largely indifferent.
> But then why do you say in your previous comment that there is an overwhelming sense of guilt in the public psyche?
The amount of media coverage on Bengal Tigers, the outrage at decline in numbers in 1990s (?), the despair today when a Tiger dies in vain or is locked up [0], plus a handful of Indians commenting on their rendezvous with the beast and other related stories in this very thread speak for themselves, don't they?
All major Indian newspapers carried this bit on the front pages. And everyone I've come across has an opinion about it, I don't see the indifference that you speak of. That said, I realise that I cannot speak for the entirety of the vast Indian populace... But the signs that the majority care are ominous, to me.
If you say something weighs on the Indian psyche, it does seem that you are making a statement that holds true for a large majority of Indian people, not just a handful of individuals.
Also, why would anyone who was not directly or indirectly involved in hunting tigers feel guilty, of all things? Sad, certainly, but guilty is a stretch.
I've shared multiple links, pointed out various facts, and even called your attention to the comments in this very thread for you to guage what I mean.
If you choose to ignore that and nitpick on pedantic meaning of words, then so be it. I'm going to stop taking the bait, sorry.
> why would anyone who was not directly or indirectly involved in hunting tigers feel guilty, of all things?
Nitpicking? No, you made the following statement. I’m saying it is entirely false.
> This isn't an exaggeration: Tigers are interwoven in to the Indian (and Bangladeshi?) psyche [0] owing mostly to the overwhelming guilt of almost singlehandedly causing extinction of these beasts.
If there is any such thing as a general Indian psyche, it is unburdened with concerns of tigers dying off. The Indian people are more concerned with mass unemployment, droughts, floods and poverty. Also, kindly do not suggest that I’m trolling you in any way. I sincerely believe that you are making an incorrect representation about how concerned Indians are with tigers.
Your references to a Kipling story and a Blake poem are completely irrelevant. Newspapers give coverage but where is the mass outrage or outpouring of sorrow or regret? If there was any you haven’t linked to it.
> where is the mass outrage or outpouring of sorrow or regret? If there was any you haven’t linked to it.
Pls read the Wikipedia entries on Tigers, T-24 and T-16, see the referenced articles therein.
> general Indian psyche, it is unburdened with concerns of tigers dying off. The Indian people are more concerned with mass unemployment, droughts, floods and poverty.
Non sequitur.
> Your references to a Kipling story and a Blake poem are completely irrelevant.
> Also, kindly do not suggest that I’m trolling you in any way.
?
> I sincerely believe that you are making an incorrect representation about how concerned Indians are with tigers.
I've shared links to back my claims. And I hear your opinion loud and clear, too. Can we pls agree to disagree and put this to rest?
Count me among them. While I'd be happy with rising tiger populations in specific tiger reserves, I do not want them roaming towns like leopards do these days [1][2].
Tigers unlike Lions are solitary animals, so these numbers are impressive +/- 10%. My home state has one of the largest numbers and I was fortunate to see a Tigress with fresh kill and couple of cubs. Truly majestic beasts these are.
Back when I saw them in Corbett national park with their kill, the thing that amazed me the most was their size. They looked bigger than a hatchback! (Ignorant me)
Jim Corbett's books have been recommended in this thread, and he talks about their behavior in the wild in great detail. Worth a read if you want to know more about them.
I had accompanied a wildlife photographer friend of mine along with a forest guard. There was a large crevice separating us and the den.
Prior permission is required from the authorities and they are very strict about handing them out and also they come with lot of restrictions, like the permit is restricted to a single zone of the forest and your entry/exit times are pre-defined and logged.
Are you sure. From my father and grandfather who have had to put down wild animals in the Indian jungle, I have heard the otherway round. Monkeys, dears and birds give characteristic warning calls when they see a tiger on the hunt.
Why would birds go silent when they see a tiger? They're not in danger. The only possible danger would be to their eggs/chicks in a nest and my experience there is they make noise when they perceive any possible intruder near their nests.
Jim Corbett was a Brit in India who had the job of hunting down a number of man-eating tigers, lived to tell about it, and wrote several books about it (recommended). He talks extensively about listening to the jungle as a tiger detection method - the monkeys freak out and call to warn each other about the predator, birds freak out and then disappear, etc. He paid attention to both unusual silences and unusual noises. There were still several occasions where he almost became tiger chow.
There was a video circulating around a few weeks back of a guy on a bike riding through a forest when a tiger came charging towards him. Absolutely terror-inducing footage. Those things are FAST!
the really interesting story is around how the law enforcement works here . Indian Tigers (especially the Royal Bengal Tigers) are some of the world's largest predators and are prized in Chinese medicine. Its brilliant how poachers have been kept off.
For those interested, there is a brilliant web documentary series called "Ranger, Ranger" about India's forest rangers who work in the sanctuaries - http://mukha.co/ranger-ranger/
Good find. I was looking for this article on STR (Sariska). It's indeed unfortunate what had happened in Sariska, but I am glad corrective measures were taken.
This is such a welcome news and a great start to the week!
But with the recent news about a tigress beaten to death in India and after coming across some videos in the social media on the tiger encounters with humans, I hope the Indian govt. also works on bolstering education and awareness campaigns across the rural population on the man vs animal encounters and also works towards preserving the forests where these encounters are reported.
I don't know if any amount of "awareness" is going to stop the people who live near them from revenge killings of man-eaters. Hard to blame them honestly.
Tiger population growth means more people live next to them. And on the internet we'll argue that it's because there's too many people but they'll expand into whatever territory they're ceded and someone is always going to have to live near them.
Craig Packer (former director of the Serengeti Lion Project) has been a big advocate of fencing in the national parks in Africa to prevent this sort of human-wildlife conflict.
It's very controversial, but similar principles would apply in India to minimize human-tiger conflict. At least some of the tiger reserves are already fenced in, but I don't believe all of them are.
I mean, i understand this is a serious issue, about conservation, rural education, the clash between individual families living next to dangerous animals and far away state administration but .. beating a tiger ?! With sticks?!
Info from the link, 4000 tigers remain on earth out of which 3000 in India.
Wow!! just wow, take a bow - to the rangers, the NGO`s, the Govt and the population, this is something the country can be really proud about. A country with a huge population and struggling to keep pace with the rapid industrialization this is very good news.
Like someone else said in the thread long way to go but immensely positive signs :)
Question to the readers: Have tigers existed in the Americas ? Were they hunt to extinction or ?
While this news is good, it should be taken into consideration that without increases in habitat area, this will lead to higher tiger-human and tiger-tiger conflict. There is rising cases of tiger-human conflicts already and I hope this doesn't lead to a backlash.
Notice how these wildlife advocates don't have lobbying offices in these areas. Their property is safe.
Elephants are not destroying their crops/orchards. Rhinos are not smashing their cars. Leopards are not eating their pets, livestock, neighbors or family members.
>But there has also been an increase in human-tiger conflict recently and one reason is that India has too many tigers and too few forests that can sustain them unless more protected reserves are added. //
So they've stopped people killing them, but haven't unfortunately, it seems, been able to address the issue that leads to people killing them.
Presumably at some point the forest area needs to increase, or people will start killing tigers to protect themselves?
I wonder too how much of the increase is improved technique in finding (and recording?)?
If conditions are good, the tigers will presumably increase in number to fill any additional forest area available to them, as well. So I expect the best-case scenario is to provide enough reserved land for the tiger population to be at a safe size, and maintain that population by culling if needed.
They'd only adopt all forest if food was limitless, they're going to reduce their growth below replacement by over-predation before they inhabit the entire World. It's possible that forest increase would see a commensurate increase in prey, but it's not a given, I imagine.
You sound spot on with the culling, population management is a complex problem given the tendency towards chaos for such systems.
Amazing animals, great news! See also the recent (Jul 20, 2019) “Siberian tigers start summer training in Heilongjiang, China” short video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIilv8vyDYI – says that from eight tigers in the captive breeding program from 1986 there are now more than a thousand.
The article mentions tigers running out of room and coming more and more into human contact, in fact there was a story not long ago about a bunch of villagers killing a tiger.
Are there any plans to increase the size of the reserves, or creating new ones for the increasing tiger population?
Also, is it possible for tigers to mix sufficiently from one reserve to another, to avoid a lack of genetic diversity?
India added a billion people since 1950 to its population. Should it be called a successes of erstwhile Govts?
Healthy sustainable growth without putting any life in ecosystem under threat is desired. India can sustain a healthy happy human population of 330 million without degrading natural wealth of the nation.
If you are visiting Bangalore, the Karnataka state(of which Bangalore is the capital) has second largest number of tigers in the country, and there are multiple tiger reserves within 100-150 Mile radius of the city. I highly recommend visiting at least one of them, the forest staff are quite friendly and you can get first hand information on how they deal with poachers etc.
The best chance is possibly Ranthambore. It's close to Jaipur as well (which is on most tourist itineraries) and easier to access than other reserves. It's also a much smaller park so it's easier to catch tigers, especially during summers.
I might be going off on a tangent, but this govt has a history of cooking up numbers. Be it GDP, be it out-of-deficit spending or be it the output of the informal economy. Something that's coming from PMO, I'd be super skeptical. Pardon me for pointing out their carelessness in handling water crisis and climate change, but sure, they focussed on tiger population growth. Definitely believable.
This was exactly my thought as well. This government has gone to extraordinary lengths to open up forests to industries with very little protection for the environment. They have also denied the rights of indigenous tribals to the lands.
I'm not sure what do you mean by denied the rights of indigenous tribals to the lands.
It was the Supreme Court that ordered to evict tribals from forests over a case filed by several wildlife groups. A review petition filed by the Centre then led to the stay on the eviction order.
My friend, if you've been in touch with how this govt presents numbers, you'd be on my side. I acknowledge that in this case there is no hard evidence on either side, except for the statement by PMO. Good luck getting anything out of an RTI (if it still exists).
The article you shared, I completely agree with it. There are a number of other factors that go into tiger population growth. Greenery is just one part of it.
I never said the number of tigers *decreased". They might have actually increased, but I was only pointing out the potential misrepresentation by this govt which has been seen with numbers time and again.
The numbers have doubled since 2006. The surveys in 2010 and 2014 showed similar increases.
I am no modi bhakt or bjp supporter, but it is appalling that people will just oppose and disbelieve anything the current government does. I can claim very confidently that you would have no problem if Manmohan Singh announced this news.
> am no modi bhakt or bjp supporter, but it is appalling that people will just oppose and disbelieve anything the current government does.
They had it coming. Its an entirely natural and well deservrd reaction to 'crying wolf' and fudging numbers. Reputation will eventually catch up. Thats how Bayesian inference works.
I could say the exact same thing about Congress's GDP numbers. It should good progress over the years, until NDA came in and downgraded them. I would be critical no matter which govt it is. The underlying problem I have is with the inefficiencies of the informal counting/measuring process. If the ruling govt pokes its nose in a "supposed to be" independent authority carrying out the process, then of course I would be skeptical. Especially after it has been exposed multiple times.
"it is appalling that people will just oppose and disbelieve anything the current government does"
Frankly, I'm not the one running troll farms and calling everyone anti-national. Nor am I the one killing my accuser.
"I can claim very confidently that you would have no problem if Manmohan Singh announced this news."
I would believe the news by anyone who has integrity.
"Frankly, I'm not the one running troll farms and calling everyone anti-national. Nor am I the one killing my accuser."
Neither is every single person who is rooting for the other side in this, or any debate, including, likely, the person you replied to. While pretending that everyone on the other side is running troll farms, it's a strawman that isn't actually helpful for debate.
Do you have any specific reasons why this specific tiger census is untrue?
Just to add nuance to the green cover info - "... 82 percent in India, comes from intensive cultivation of food crops ..." -- from the article you shared. Food crops don't really help the reasons we pursue aforestation.
You're right that they lie all the time and we can't really trust them, but this has been a multi year effort started many many years ago. Also I dont think that they are gonna gain anything electorally from lying about this!
Stories about climate change are flagged off the front page because they are supposedly irrelevant but somehow this story remains. What gives? How is the tiger population more relevant than climate change, an existential threat to humanity and all living species?
Plenty of stories about climate change still get attention on the front page. There's usually at least one every day. But they're the ones that contain new information.
Stories get flagged off the front page when they're repetitive, and stories get front page traction when they contain interesting/useful new information.
The recovering tiger population is interesting new information.
It isn't about tiger population vs climate change.
The tiger population is important because they are at the peak of the food chain, and their conservation is important to ensure the well-being of the forest ecosystem.
i complained about unsubstantive comments a while back and got minused into oblivion so... sorry ? i thought i was 'getting with the program' under outdated guidelines.
Tigers are twice as heavy as lions but still the same size. With a single swipe of a claw, a tiger was able to slit a lion’s throat, killing it instantly.
They are much more majestic than lions. They should (probably) be called the king of the jungle. I remember reading man eaters of kumaon as a child, it was fascinating and scary. Highly recommended. There was one tiger in the book that was responsible for killing 100s of humans (300 or something, can't remember the exact number). Scary stuff.
This is false, lions and tigers are very similar sizes, and indeed are incredibly similar overall. They are almost indistinguishable by their skeletons. I don’t know where you got this information, but it is wrong.
Guess again. A full grown male lion tops out at about ~400 pounds, or about the weight of a female tiger.
A male bengal tiger can easily hit ~700 pounds. If a lion isn’t at the top of his game and weighs maybe 350 pounds, which is easy when you lay around all day instead of wandering the jungles constantly hunting for meals, that’s about a 100% difference.
700 pounds of tightly coiled muscles waiting to pounce. If you’re in a jungle you’ll never see it coming. Maybe in a wide open field a lion could put up a good fight, but if you’re in the jungle never bet against the tiger.
In fact, just never bet against a tiger period. They are far more aggressive than lions and have little to no mercy. A human could be friends with a lion but rarely a tiger. To even be somewhat respected by a tiger you’d first probably have to be an absolute unit.
To me arguing about which is better lions or tigers is like arguing about what's the best colour (it's blue by the way!).
Every species on the brink of extinction is important in ways we don't yet understand. We need to save everything because we won't see it's like again.
But how do you know that there is more muscle? You only know that there is more mass based on the premise.
My point is that muscle cells across animals don't have significantly differing density. However, different individuals (of any species) may have different levels of glycogen and fat embedded in the muscle, which may contribute to your point of "muscle density". It is just a loser terminology of muscle density as such. Even then, I doubt that muscles mass for the same volume of muscle could change that much across individuals.
All in all, I am just arguing for more specificity in your hypothesis, because I think in its current form, it isn't adding much clear detail.
Everyday ? You live in rough country. In Bangalore, we ride on elephants only for the first day of work. The local tigers here dont care much for engineers with experience.
The bulk of the tiger population is in the Sundarbans (marshlands at the bottom of the Ganga-Brahmaputra delta). Anecdotally, many of the Sundarban tigers are man-eaters and there is a tacit policy to not go after the ones that happen to kill humans. This keeps the poachers and encroachers away, but also makes any census nearly impossible to conduct. I would not put too much faith in these reported numbers.
This is wrong. If you see the results report [1], it says the complete opposite. The Sundarban region recorded the least tiger population (88 tigers). The bulk of the tiger population comes from Eastern Ghats and Western Ghats regions.
This is wrong on many levels.
7-8 states have more tigers than Bengal.
Sundarban tigers are not man-eaters by default
Tiger census is tricky business, but these numbers are as legit as they can get (especially given, outside of India, BD and Nepal, no other countries have serious population of tigers in the wild). I mean, what other numbers would you trust?
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashik_district