most of the animal lovers. It is also a symbol of strength and courage. Its presence says it all. It has inspired many writings and phrases. Tiger by William Blake is one such with the immortal catch line “Tiger tiger, burning bright...” But unfortunately the fate of this majestic animal is no brighter. At present there are only about 1,500 tigers left in India.
Tigers are believed to have evolved over one million years ago in Asia. From there the tiger spread north to the Amur region of eastern Russia, south to the islands of Indonesia, and southwest to Indochina and the Indian subcontinent. The presence of eight subspecies of tiger was known worldwide of which three have already been extinct. In India, we have the Royal Bengal Tiger, the most threatened large carnivore in India and the White Tiger which is a mutant of the Bengal tiger itself. At the turn of the 19th century, an estimate of the tiger population in India placed the figure at 45,000. In 1972, the first official census of tigers was conducted in India which revealed the existence of only 1,827 tigers. With such a drop in the tiger population in India, the government was forced to set up a special task force in 1972.
Based on the recommendation of this task force, Project Tiger was launched on April 1, 1973. The project tiger now covers 28 reserves in 17 states. In northeast India there are three such reserves — Manas, Pakke-Nameri and Namdapha.
Under the project, management plans were drawn up for each tiger reserve based on:
n Elimination of all forms of human exploitation and biotic disturbance from the core area and rationalization of activities in the buffer zone.
n Restricting the habitat management only to repair the damages done to the eco-system by human and other interferences so as to facilitate recovery of the ecosystem to its natural state.
n Monitoring the faunal and floral changes over time and carrying out research about wildlife.
The general threats to the tiger population is similar to most of the threats faced by other organisms in the present day world such as habitat destruction, pollution of habitat, depletion of prey population, etc. Additionally, the tiger also faces a major threat in form of poaching. Tigers are killed as many of their body parts are highly rated in international market.
“Got money, take tiger” seems to be the new courtesy greeting in the market streets of Tibet as they are full of peddlers selling tiger skins. It seems that the Indian tigers are turning out to be the latest fashion victims. Almost every part of this magnificent cat is sold and that too at an abominable high price, i.e. around $320-$2,000. Closer home, CBI officials estimated around Rs 60,000 per tiger skin to be earned by the notorious poacher Sansar Chand, kingpin of the Sariska tragedy.
Apart from the lucrative sums of money earned from tiger trade, this animal is also killed for its presumable healing powers. People believe that tiger bones cure rheumatism, potions made from its whiskers evoke strength, tiger tails mixed with soap cure skin afflictions and the list goes on.
The episode of Sansar Chand during the Sariska tragedy opened eyes wide to the inhuman activities related to the tiger. It was in December, 2004, that India learnt about the disappearances of tigers from Sariska tiger reserve in Rajasthan. By March 2005, the Wildlife Institute of India confirmed that no tigers were indeed left in Sariska. The CBI reported that the disappearance of tigers was mainly due to heinous poaching and tiger trade by middlemen, some local villagers with Sansar Chand at the centre. The nation had hardly recovered from this shock that another was knocking at its door. In November 2005, it was declared that Namdapha tiger reserve in northeast India was also stripped of these majestic creatures. The Namdapha episode was even more disastrous than Sariska as it boasted of 61 tigers as opposed to the 22 big cats of Sariska. All these pointed to sinister activities around this animal which was steadily leading to its destruction.
The reasons for the decline of this animal seem not only poaching and tiger trade but also lack of proper tiger census and monitoring techniques. Earlier, tiger census was carried out mostly by pug mark count where foot impressions of tiger were used as the source regarding various aspects of tiger. But many modern scientists are skeptic about the method as they believe that the pug mark counting process was not uniform in all the tiger reserves. The census of tigers is not only carried out by pug mark count but sometimes also by keeping count of their skin, hair, claws, paws and whiskers. This technique shows a terrifying total of 700 tiger deaths between the years 1994-2004, as per Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI) figures.
Back home in Assam itself, various studies are conducted to sustain a steady population of this illusive animal. On that regard a recent ongoing study of the tigers by Aaranyak in Orang National Park is already showing encouraging signs. One of the most interesting aspects of this study is the use of modern camera trapping technique for tiger census. For this study 27 camera traps were installed and were surveyed for twenty days. Twenty photographs were obtained in the study period of seven individual tigers which were segregated based on the patterns of the stripes on their body which are unique in themselves.
Basically a camera trap is a technique where the photograph of the animal is used as a source of data. For this, at first a site in the forest is selected which is thought to be most frequently visited by animals; in this case, the tiger. Then two cameras are set opposite to each other providing enough space for animals to pass through. Adjacent to the cameras, an infrared sensor is placed. The ray emitted by the sensors is collected by a receiver. The rays actually form an invisible line in the path of the animal. When the animal crosses this path the continuous invisible beam of light is obstructed. This triggers the cameras on both sides to take snaps of the animal simultaneously. Picture of both sides of a tiger is required to confidently identify an individual. As stripes of either side are different, using stripes on one side would be misleading and may lead to inflated number of tigers in an area.
Though in a budding phase, these studies hold the key to the sustenance of this Big Cat. But the fact is only a handful of researchers are not going to save a species, until and unless we realize the importance of coexistence. Also if we humans take it too long to realize that we are just a mere strand in this web of life and any alteration in this web will affect us the same way as it does to others, maybe, there will be no one left to discuss or to be discussed.
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