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| Tiger numbers to be released |
| Sources have told NDTV that numbers in Madhya Pradesh alone could be less than half the number the state has projected for years.
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| INDIA
, 23-May-2007
1:40:4 AM |
| Tiger numbers for central India will be released on Wednesday as part of the national tiger census being carried out in the country.
Sources have told NDTV that numbers in Madhya Pradesh alone could be less than half the number the state has projected for years.
This time around a broad spectrum of parameters were used to ascertain tiger numbers. Everything from habitat to prey base availability and camera trapping has been used to come up with tiger numbers.
The photo data collected is the first ever record of its kind of existing tigers in India.
The last government census put tiger numbers at 3500. This was with the old pugmark method.
The pugmark method is prone to errors and it has been very clear since the Sariska debacle that the government has been inflating tiger numbers in every national park and sanctuary for fear of criticism.
This has affected the protection of the big cat adversely. We have lost over 800 tigers to poaching since 1998.
Conservationists fear that this time numbers could be as low as just 1500 tigers in the country.
Around the world tigers have disappeared from over 40 per cent of their historical ranges and total numbers worldwide in the wild are at less than five thousand tigers.
India is the only tiger range state with over one thousand tigers. In India certain areas like the western ghats and the Sunderbans and Uttarakhand have improved on tiger numbers while most areas have lost their tigers.
''Apart from poaching, habitat loss has been the biggest reason for dismal tiger numbers and also human encroachment into tiger areas,'' said Bittu Sehgal, Editor, Sanctuary magazine.
The exercise, which has been on for over a year and a half now with 88,000 personal deployed across the country in all tiger areas, will release the entire data only by the end of this year.
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