Tiger Population in India

A Bengal tiger.

At the turn of the twentieth century the Bengal tiger population in India was estimated to be about 40,000. In 1972, however, the first Indian tiger census was conducted, revealing the existence of only 1,827 tigers.

Former prime minister Indira Gandhi, an avid animal lover, passed the Wildlife Protection Act, which placed the tiger in the first schedule of endangered animals. She also established Project Tiger in 1972, an extremely successful conservation venture that formed "tiger reserves" on which tigers roam free and on which hunting is forbidden. Today, there are twenty-seven tiger reserves in India.

Global organizations, such as the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), contributed much funding to Project Tiger. Eventually, however, it was discovered that the project's field directors had been manipulating tiger census numbers in order to encourage more donations. In fact, the numbers were so exaggerated as to be biologically impossible in some cases. [1]

In addition, Project Tiger's efforts were damaged by poaching, as well as the Sariska debacle [2] and the latest Namdapha tragedy [3], both of which were reported extensively in the Indian media.

In the wake of these incidents, tiger activists and environmentalists like Valmik Thapar and Belinda Wright have demanded that the Prime Minister establish an independent census to determine the actual number of the tigers in India. (The country is already conducting a nationwide tiger census, but its objectivity has been questioned by some because it relies on persons known to have fudged previous census results.)

In the meantime, the struggle to save the Indian tiger remains difficult as poachers kill the endangered animal to meet an international demand for tiger parts. Wright, for example, has cited a strong demand for tiger skins in China and Tibet as serious problem in tiger preservation. [4].