Richard Collins: How has India turned the fortunes of its tigers around?
Most tigers just ignore people. One that develops a penchant for human flesh has usually sustained a crippling injury. Picture: Ben Birchall/PA Wire
Twenty years ago, the future of the Bengal tiger looked bleak. Visiting its celebrated haunt, Ranthambore, back then, it was four days before we came on a mother and her two cubs. Tiger numbers were falling throughout India. Ours, we feared, might be the last generation to see this magnificent creature in the wild.
Thankfully, we were wrong. A paper just published claims that tigers are staging a comeback in India.
Persecution, habitat destruction, and ever-increasing encroachment by a rapidly expanding human population are blamed for the decline of the world’s largest cat. Demand for tiger body parts by bogus Chinese medicine practitioners takes a relentless toll. And there can also be health and safety issues. The notorious ‘man-eaters of Kumaon’ gave tigers a bad name. The legendary Jim Corbett, in his 1944 book on them, claimed that rogue tigers had killed 400 people.
There are about 100 fatalities annually in today’s India. Fishermen in the Sunderbans, the mangrove forests of the Ganges delta, are frequent victims, but incidents are rare elsewhere. Most tigers just ignore people. One that develops a penchant for human flesh has usually sustained a crippling injury. No longer able to hunt wild prey effectively, it turns to attacking people.
In Hindu belief, human souls can transmigrate to animals. We must, therefore, live and let live. A ranger at Bharatpur, one of Asia’s great bird sanctuaries, told me that a lone tiger had lived peacefully on the reserve for years. Tigers tend to be nocturnal but a sighting of the beast during the day would be a titivating bonus for visiting bird-watchers.
Local economies can benefit from the presence of tigers; these legendary beasts are a tourist attraction. But it’s a two-edged sword; they can also attack grazing cattle.
According to the recent paper, there are now about 3,700 tigers in India, three-quarters of the world’s population and 30% more than there were two decades ago. So how has India, now the world’s most populous country, managed to turn the fortunes of its tigers around?
Tiger habitats have been restored and protective measures enforced. Farmers are being compensated for livestock lost. Despite these animals’ fearsome reputation, there is still what the authors call "a deep reverence" for the big cats.
Nor is this conservation success all down to protection in reserves and compensation schemes; this is not an enforced ‘them and us’ two-state solution. Around 45% of India’s tigers actually share their habitat with people. Indeed these carnivores seem to fare best in areas where there is prosperity and political stability.
"Sparing land for tigers," the authors conclude, "enabled land-sharing, provided that socioeconomic prosperity and political stability prevailed." And there’s a lesson for conservationists elsewhere: "India’s tiger recovery offers cautious optimism for mega fauna recovery, particularly in the Global South", say the authors.
