Sharp skew in national big cat map: 20% of tiger area has less than 1% of tiger population

Last Updated03/08/2023

The Environment Ministry recently released the All-India Tiger Estimate (AITE) report.

One-fifth of India’s tiger area spanning 16 tiger reserves harbours only 25 (or less than one per cent) of India’s 3,682 tigers.
None of these 16 “bottom reserves,” has more than five tigers .
Seven have one tiger each, and five reported none.
The latest AITE records a net gain of 715 tigers over the previous estimate in 2018.
- However, the national count shows the shrinking range of the big cat since 45% of India’s tigers are concentrated in another set of 16 reserves.
- This skew is persistent but getting sharper.
In the previous AITE in 2018, 14 of the 16 bottom reserves together reported 40 tigers which is now down to 19.
The situation is not good in states such as Jharkhand (only one tiger recorded), Orissa, Chhattisgarh and many areas in the Northeast.
Losing tigers in these reserves amounts to losing genetic resources.
Reasons: lax management, poor protection, habitat degradation and loss of prey base.
Solutions
- Need to invest in protection and the prey base
- Look at the option of reintroducing tigers in some of these reserves.