India’s tiger population

Genesis of Project Tiger

While there were 40,000 tigers in the country at the time of the Independence, they were soon reduced to below 2,000 by 1970 due to their widespread hunting and poaching.
Two years later, the Indian government conducted its own tiger census and found that there were only 1,800 of them left in the country.
To tackle the problem of hunting and poaching of not just tigers but also other animals and birds, then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi promulgated the Wildlife Protection Act in 1972.
A year later, after a task force urged the government to create a chain of reserves dedicated to tiger preservation, the government unveiled Project Tiger.

About Project Tiger

Project Tiger is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Government of India which was launched in 1973 for in-situ conservation of wild tigers in designated tiger reserves.
Broadly, the strategy involves exclusive tiger agenda in the core/critical tiger habitat, inclusive people-wildlife agenda in the outer buffer, besides fostering the latter agenda in the corridors.
This strategy is reflected in a tiger reserve specific Tiger Conservation Plan for each reserve prepared under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
The initiative is administered under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC). National Tiger Conservation Authority, a statutory body under MoEFCC, is the immediate supervising agency.
It was launched from the Jim Corbett National Park of Uttarakhand. At present, there are more than 50 Tiger Reserves in India governed by Project Tiger.
Notably, Project Tiger didn’t just focus on the conservation of the big cats. It also ensured the preservation of their natural habitat as tigers are at the top of the food chain

What’s in the news?

India’s tiger population is estimated to be 3 thousand 925 with an annual growth rate of 6.1%per annum.
Last year during the celebration of 50 years of the Project Tiger at Mysuru, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had declared the minimum tiger population of 3 thousand 167, which is the population estimated from the camera-trapped area.
Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change said that now the further analysis of data done by the Wildlife Institute of India, from both camera-trapped and non-camera-trapped tiger presence areas, suggested that the upper limit of the tiger population is estimated to be 3,925 and the average number is 3,682 tigers, reflecting a commendable annual growth rate of 6.1 percent per annum.
India currently harbors almost 75 percent of the world’s wild tiger population.

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