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It was the year 2005. The last official count of tigers in Sariska Tiger Reserve of Rajasthan had shown at least 26 tigers in this 866 sq km area. However, something was amiss. The last sighting of a tiger was reported on November 28, 2004, but after that there hadn’t been a single tiger seen not even a telltale pug mark found by forest officials. Alarmed over the drastic drop the Ministry of Environment and Forests asked officials to carry out “an intensive search”. Soon, the chief minister of Rajasthan and the Prime Minister were involved prompting national level organisations including Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to carry a field study at their own level. No one could find a tiger in one of the oldest national parks of India. All tigers of Sariska Tiger Reserve had become extinct.
Lessons to learn
10 years later, the present day Sariska Tiger Reserve hasn’t regained a booming tiger population, but it still has been a harbinger of change in many respects in the history of tiger conservation in India. The complete disappearance of tigers in this seemingly idle habitat stunned the world but it stunned India more and enough to re-access its policies, conservation strategies, and tiger protection plans that fateful year. Issues like habitat loss, habitat destruction and most importantly poaching, that was found to be the reason behind the loss of all the tigers of Sariska, could no more be swiped under the carpet. The nation with the highest wild tiger population had to answer the world whether it chose a future with tigers or without them. It changed the way India counted its tigers. It changed the way India protected its tigers and it is because of the loss that a novel conservation plan was put into place to translocate for the very first time, tigers from an old habitat to a new one in the hope that the lost glory could be brought back to Sariska.
The Sariska forest was part of the erstwhile princely state of Alwar. It was always known as a prime tiger habitat and as favourite hunting ground of the royalty, it received strict protection. It was notified as a sanctuary in 1955 and in 1982 became a National Park. The Tiger Reserve was created in 1978. When the tiger census of 2001-2002 revealed Sariska had about 26 tigers, no one could have imagined that in the next couple of years, none of them would remain. As the news of the lost tigers spread, a CBI enquiry led to the arrest of a gang of poachers who confessed to killing at least 10 tigers in Sariska during 2002-2004. Five of these were killed during the monsoon of 2004 alone. While one tiger was shot dead using a buffalo as bait, the rest were trapped with metal traps before being killed.
On the behest of the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a Tiger Task Force was soon created. Eventually, Project Tiger, the national tiger-conservation programme, was given more powers and reborn as the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau in 2006. In 2008, overcoming local and political hurdles and amidst huge controversies, the first-of-its-kind tiger translocation was carried out from Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan to Sariska.
Unresolved challenges
ST-1 a tiger and ST-2 a tigress became the first of the tigers to be translocated from Ranthambore to Sariska in 2008. Since then 7 tigers have been shifted to the Reserve. However the success of the move hasn’t been as rapid or forthcoming as was expected. To begin with, most conservation experts felt that shifting tigers to Sariska occurred without evading the basic problems that had led to the vanishing of the tigers from this location in the first place.
Jay Mazoomdar, a film maker and independent journalist, who first brought attention to the crisis back in 2004 mentions, “Conditions in Sariska that had led to the local extinction of the striped cats due to poaching back in 2004 remained pretty much the same. The Centre’s approval for the translocation plan came with certain riders. But the state managed to push ahead with the plan without bothering to meet these pre-conditions.”
Sariska tigers share their habitat with 26 villages and a booming human population competing for the same resources. The central government back in 2008 had asked the State to move certain crucial villages away from the core forest area. Heavy traffic from the State highway that cuts the reserve was asked to be diverted and busy pilgrim traffic to the temples deep in the forest was to be regulated, none of which was put into practice.
Sariska’s future
Caught in between pockets of forests and humanity, the relocated tigers of Sariska have lived on but it hasn’t been a smooth ride. Illegal cattle grazing, vehicle traffic, illegal mining and stone quarrying have taken their toll on the habitat and left its wild residents in stress. A study by scientists from the Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES) found that human disturbances were the primary reason why Sariska tigers were not breeding successfully. In the last seven years the tiger population of Sariska has grown to 13 with seven females, two males and four cubs. It isn’t a grand success but it is progress.
India, being the country with the highest population of tigers in the world, has spent more resources and money than any other country to save tigers. As a nation with a population of over a billion, along with 70 per cent of tigers in the world living in 25 per cent of the world tiger habitat, critical choices have to be made at every step to make sure people and wildlife don’t claim the same land to survive. The first tiger relocated to Sariska ST-1 was found dead in 2010, when it was poisoned by local villagers angry at the tiger’s foray into their parts. Could this tragedy have been evaded if the locals too were armed with the same knowledge as the conservationists and the forest officers? When for centuries Indians have learnt to accommodate and live with the apex predator amidst them, shouldn’t it be part of the ground work to equip the same locals with the expertise that makes them not just fear but respect and protect the unique animal?
Sariska tiger’s saga has at one end helped dispel old practices and experiment with new ideas, but on the other end has also highlighted how humans led by greed or conflict for the same space can take actions that cannot be undone. Where will the world’s biggest tiger nation bring tigers to relocate from if one by one all national parks go the Sariska way? The nation has to be taught to treat the national animal with the respect it deserves.
Lessons to learn
10 years later, the present day Sariska Tiger Reserve hasn’t regained a booming tiger population, but it still has been a harbinger of change in many respects in the history of tiger conservation in India. The complete disappearance of tigers in this seemingly idle habitat stunned the world but it stunned India more and enough to re-access its policies, conservation strategies, and tiger protection plans that fateful year. Issues like habitat loss, habitat destruction and most importantly poaching, that was found to be the reason behind the loss of all the tigers of Sariska, could no more be swiped under the carpet. The nation with the highest wild tiger population had to answer the world whether it chose a future with tigers or without them. It changed the way India counted its tigers. It changed the way India protected its tigers and it is because of the loss that a novel conservation plan was put into place to translocate for the very first time, tigers from an old habitat to a new one in the hope that the lost glory could be brought back to Sariska.
The Sariska forest was part of the erstwhile princely state of Alwar. It was always known as a prime tiger habitat and as favourite hunting ground of the royalty, it received strict protection. It was notified as a sanctuary in 1955 and in 1982 became a National Park. The Tiger Reserve was created in 1978. When the tiger census of 2001-2002 revealed Sariska had about 26 tigers, no one could have imagined that in the next couple of years, none of them would remain. As the news of the lost tigers spread, a CBI enquiry led to the arrest of a gang of poachers who confessed to killing at least 10 tigers in Sariska during 2002-2004. Five of these were killed during the monsoon of 2004 alone. While one tiger was shot dead using a buffalo as bait, the rest were trapped with metal traps before being killed.
On the behest of the then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a Tiger Task Force was soon created. Eventually, Project Tiger, the national tiger-conservation programme, was given more powers and reborn as the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau in 2006. In 2008, overcoming local and political hurdles and amidst huge controversies, the first-of-its-kind tiger translocation was carried out from Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan to Sariska.
Unresolved challenges
ST-1 a tiger and ST-2 a tigress became the first of the tigers to be translocated from Ranthambore to Sariska in 2008. Since then 7 tigers have been shifted to the Reserve. However the success of the move hasn’t been as rapid or forthcoming as was expected. To begin with, most conservation experts felt that shifting tigers to Sariska occurred without evading the basic problems that had led to the vanishing of the tigers from this location in the first place.
Jay Mazoomdar, a film maker and independent journalist, who first brought attention to the crisis back in 2004 mentions, “Conditions in Sariska that had led to the local extinction of the striped cats due to poaching back in 2004 remained pretty much the same. The Centre’s approval for the translocation plan came with certain riders. But the state managed to push ahead with the plan without bothering to meet these pre-conditions.”
Sariska tigers share their habitat with 26 villages and a booming human population competing for the same resources. The central government back in 2008 had asked the State to move certain crucial villages away from the core forest area. Heavy traffic from the State highway that cuts the reserve was asked to be diverted and busy pilgrim traffic to the temples deep in the forest was to be regulated, none of which was put into practice.
Sariska’s future
Caught in between pockets of forests and humanity, the relocated tigers of Sariska have lived on but it hasn’t been a smooth ride. Illegal cattle grazing, vehicle traffic, illegal mining and stone quarrying have taken their toll on the habitat and left its wild residents in stress. A study by scientists from the Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES) found that human disturbances were the primary reason why Sariska tigers were not breeding successfully. In the last seven years the tiger population of Sariska has grown to 13 with seven females, two males and four cubs. It isn’t a grand success but it is progress.
India, being the country with the highest population of tigers in the world, has spent more resources and money than any other country to save tigers. As a nation with a population of over a billion, along with 70 per cent of tigers in the world living in 25 per cent of the world tiger habitat, critical choices have to be made at every step to make sure people and wildlife don’t claim the same land to survive. The first tiger relocated to Sariska ST-1 was found dead in 2010, when it was poisoned by local villagers angry at the tiger’s foray into their parts. Could this tragedy have been evaded if the locals too were armed with the same knowledge as the conservationists and the forest officers? When for centuries Indians have learnt to accommodate and live with the apex predator amidst them, shouldn’t it be part of the ground work to equip the same locals with the expertise that makes them not just fear but respect and protect the unique animal?
Sariska tiger’s saga has at one end helped dispel old practices and experiment with new ideas, but on the other end has also highlighted how humans led by greed or conflict for the same space can take actions that cannot be undone. Where will the world’s biggest tiger nation bring tigers to relocate from if one by one all national parks go the Sariska way? The nation has to be taught to treat the national animal with the respect it deserves.
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(Published 05 October 2015, 15:42 IST)
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