By Jessica Frei:
The exotic felid species of brown and black strips that ventures and hunts alone is the pride of India. Royal Bengal tigers are more than just an attraction of Indian wildlife, even in the mind of tourists who come looking for them to various national parks of India. These are an endangered species due to the fear they invoke in common people and charisma they carry with themselves. Humans feel forced and thus they get involved in activities like poaching. This has led to huge drop in their numbers in past few decades. Government of India thus became cautious and launched Project Tiger in various conservation parks to control the dropping figures and take measures to increase them.
The Good News
In tiger census conducted in 2011, these efforts have started showing results. Conducted every four years, the India-wide counting in last census reported 225 more tigers since 2007. It was now 1706 as compared to 1411. This figure also includes 70 tigers of Sunderban that were not included in the count of 2007. To get the correct count, National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) had also proposed to conduct tiger census annually.
Start With PA
Protected Areas (PAs) like national parks, wild life sanctuaries and tiger reserves of India are in the centre of any such program related to tiger conservation. These habitats are protected so that schemes and conservation strategies like Project Tigers could be effectively employed. Some of the names include:
Kanha
Madhya Pradesh is known as tiger state of India and not without the reason. With nine national parks and nearly triple the number for wild life sanctuaries and tiger reserves, including Kanha National Park. Project Tiger has been running successfully here for quite some time now. By visiting Kanha, tourists contribute in their own manner towards funding the resources required to let the program run successfully.
Bandhavgarh
Wildlife lovers consider themselves unlucky if they couldn’t spot tigers here, so huge is the number of the ferocious jungle felines here. Various tiger awareness programs are running to educate villagers around the protected areas shedding some light on the issue of saving tiger to save future of humans on earth. Bandhavgarh tiger reserve is thus getting benefits of such programs.
There are many others protected areas like Corbett NP, Ranthambhore, Pench, Kaziranga, Bandipur, Periyar, Sariska and others to reap the benefits of different programs as in the above PAs. They are supported and run by various NGOs’ hand in hand with Government. Consider the following in this context.
– Tiger Watch is an NGO that functions primarily in Ranthambhore, taking care of tigers and other wild residents.
– Tiger Conservation program was initiated in 1997 by WWF with the aim of bringing back tiger as a species from the verge of extinction.
– Wildlife Protection Society of India (WSPI) also started Tiger Conservation Awareness Campaign Vans to teach villagers of the importance of tigers for human survival.
– Satpuda Landscape Tiger Programme is also one such attempt to save tigers in the largest part of Indian forest land initiated by Born Free Foundation and Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at the University of Oxford.
– Global Tiger Recovery Programme is a step with the mission of saving tiger on an international outlook.
There are numerous such steps are being taken with the firms and forums who understands the importance of the tigers to the world. It is this focussed work that has brought the good news and will continue to work in that manner fuelling hope for better tomorrow for human as well as tigers.
Photo Credit: Todd Ryburn via Compfight cc