More Trouble For Tigers

Despite the hard labor of the Indian government and Wildlife activists, gradually India is loosing its national animal, the magnificent Tigers. Due to the rampant killing of Tigers by the poachers mostly for their skin, many Indian forest reserves and wildlife sanctuaries are on the verge of loosing these big cats.

Few days back, Sariska and Panna Forest reserves of Madhya Pradesh has been declared as the Tiger less forest reserves by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). Now the same fate is being repeated with Uttar Pradesh. It is assumed that Uttar Pradesh has drastically lost its Tiger population.

This news came as a real shocker for both Government authorities as well as to the environmentalist. It is believed that Tiger population in Uttar Pradesh could slide into double digits due to various reasons. To get the actual strength of the Tigers in the entire state, officials of the Uttar Pradesh Forest Department (UPFD) are busy in conducting the biennial (two-yearly) tiger census. Over the past decade, this biennial tiger census which has been conducted by the UPFD is surrounded by various controversy. Every time whenever the data has been revealed after the Tiger census, the foresters and the conservationists slug it out.

This time the controversy related to the Tiger census is about the efficiency of the double camera trap technique, used to estimate the Tiger population. In the year 2007, this technique was used for the first time. This technique became a matter of conflict between UPFD and NTCA. According to the NTCA, this is the most reliable technique available.

According to the B.K Patnaik, the Chief Wildlife Warden(CWW) of UP said that the despite being an advanced technique, the camera trap method also has some short comings. He moreover said that its being very difficult to accurately count the population of the Tigers. However, he added there is no question of argument as this technique has been accepted by both the NTCA and Wildlife Institute Of India (WII).

The UPFD was up in arms as soon as the last figures were declared in 2008. The population of the Tiger in the state has drastically fall from 273 in UPFD's 2005 census to 109 Tigers of WII's 2007 census. UPFD has protested against the report of the WII's 2007 census in the UP and immediately showed its objection to the NTCA. But NTCA has overruled it.

Dr Diwakar Sharma, associate director, Species Conservation Programme, World Wildlife Fund (WWF), India said that the Tiger conservation should not be slow down on the basis of the statistics alone. He said that camera trap is more sophisticated technique in comparison to the traditional pugmark method. But the major drawback of the camera tarp method is the lack of training of the staffs of the forest department.

As this year's census is supposed to be conducted by the UPFD, a senior official of the forest department said that till date no formal training for the camera trap method has been given to any staff member. The department has also pointed some other drawbacks such as if the camera placed at a height of about 2 feet, it miss out the cabs who are generally short in height. Apart from this, the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve which has at least 100 Tigers, is surrounded by the sugarcane fields. These fields are known to be the flourishing ground for the Tigers. But its being difficult to place the cameras in the field due to practical reasons.