India records 200 more tigers since last estimate in 2018

India on Sunday reported a minimum presence of 3,167 tigers in the wild – 200 more since the 2018 estimate – with Prime Minister Narendra Modi announcing a part of the results of the 2022 all-India tiger estimation, an exercise that provides an update on the status of tigers and the prey base in 53 tiger reserves spread over 75,000 sq km area.

“India is home to 75 per cent of the world’s tiger population in the 75th year of Indian independence. The tiger reserves in India cover 75,000 sq km of land and in the past ten to twelve years, the tiger population in the country has increased by 75 per cent,” the Prime Minister said. “India doesn’t see any conflict between ecology and economy. We seek co-existence of both.”

Compared to the 2018 estimate, the number of tigers – caught on camera traps - has increased in the Shivalik hills and Gangetic plains as well as in the central Indian landscape and Sunderbans, but dipped in the Western Ghats and the North East.

This, experts say, suggests that some of the tiger reserves probably are close to their carrying capacity.

The 2018 and 2022 figures, however, are not directly comparable. The 2022 report says, “a total of 3,080 individual tigers (more than one year of age) were photo-captured, which is larger than the ones captured in 2018. The minimum population estimate is 3,167 individuals.”

But the maximum range of the population estimate has not been provided in the report released by the prime minister. The state or tiger-reserve-wise break-ups were also not shared.

On the contrary, the 2018 figure – an estimate of 2,967 tigers – was the result of a modelling exercise that ran parallel to the camera-trapping activities. Such a two-fold method was used in each of the previous all-India tiger estimates since 2006.

“Population estimate (of tigers) is based on two parts: (1) camera-trapped space and (2) modelled space. We have declared 3,167 which is the population of camera-trapped space. In 2018 it was 2,591 for the camera trapped space. For the modelled space, the process is underway,” Qamar Qureshi, a scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun and a key member of the team that carried out the estimate told DH.

In the Shivalik Hills and Gangetic plains 804 tigers have been camera-trapped as against the 2018 estimate of 646. The corresponding numbers for Central India and Eastern Ghat landscape are 1,161 (1,033 in 2018); for the Western Ghats 824 (981) and the North East 194 (219).

A closer look at the central Indian landscape reveals gains in parts of Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra, but a sharp decline in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Telangana. At least in five reserves, tigers have become locally extinct.

"Sustainable recovery of tiger populations will occur when habitats are restored, protected and also connected. Prey populations have to recover first for tiger populations to grow," remarked wildlife biologist Ravi Chellam, CEO of Metastring Foundation and Coordinator of Biodiversity Collaborative.

For the mangrove-dominated Sundarban delta, as many as 100 tigers were photographed in 2022 against an estimated 88 as per the 2018 census.

The Prime Minister also launched the International big cat alliance to focus on the conservation of the world's seven major big cats - tigers, lions, leopards, snow leopards, cheetahs, jaguars and pumas.