Even after the intervention of the Prime Minister, the census on India’s tigers is certain to miss its deadline of August 2006.
NEW DELHI: Even after the intervention of the Prime Minister, the census on India’s tigers is certain to miss its deadline of August 2006. In a display of total callousness for a national crisis, the ministry of environment and forests has been unable to deliver on its promise of coming up with a definitive picture of the current state of the Indian tiger. According to sources, so much of the data is yet to be either collected or processed that the whole project could be delayed by over a year.
One of the main reasons for the delay is the new methodology adopted to count the numbers this time around. It is a far more intrusive and technologically advanced in scope. A lot of the forest staff is simply not trained enough to carry it through. There will be another round of training to familiarise the staff with the new methodology in at least three states.
The previous method of counting the pugmarks has proved to be grossly inefficient in estimating tiger numbers. The new method employs sophisticated tiger collars with GPS, photo traps and extensive field surveys with six definitive features.
What is alarming conservationists is the delay in the numbers on the tiger census from sensitive states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, which have seen a particular decline in tiger numbers over the last decade.
A source in the Rajasthan government attributed the delay to a severe shortfall of personnel on ground. Some tiger reserves have up to fifty percent vacancies for forest guards that have not been filled. Comments conservationist Valmik Thapar, “The whole exercise has been a disaster. The situation today, even after all the hue and cry by the prime minister himself, is that no one really knows just how many tigers there are in the wild in India.”
While the official figure of tigers in the wild is 3,500, it is feared that less than 1,500 may still survive in the jungles of India.
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