TIGER THREAT !

[Anonymous]

The threat to India’s main tiger centre

Poaching for tiger skin is rampant

India’s most
important tiger centre is under threat.

Rampant poaching is the biggest threat to the future of the big
cats in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.

With 712 tigers in nine national parks and 25 wildlife
sanctuaries, Madhya Pradesh is home to the largest tiger population in the
country.

There has been recent concern over tigers disappearing at an
alarming rate from the Sariska reserve in western Rajasthan state.

But two major seizures by the police in Madhya Pradesh last
month point to the growing menace of poaching in the state.

On 8 April, the police arrested a man from the Betul district of
Madhya Pradesh who had admitted to killing as many as 30 big cats – tigers and
panthers – over the past two years, an official said.

‘High threat’

In another operation, provoked by reports of missing tigers in
the Panna national park, the police recovered equipment – iron snares and
electric wires – used for catching tigers.

Between 1998 and 2004, remains, including skins, of 28 tigers
were recovered from 12 districts in the state, wildlife officials said.

“The poaching threat is very high,” admits the state’s principal
conservator of forests (wildlife), PB Gangopadhaya.

Madhya Pradesh is home to a fourth of India’s tiger population

The Wildlife
Protection Society of India (WPSI) says a majority of the remains from 719
tigers and 2,474 leopards poached in India between 1994 and 2004 were from
Madhya Pradesh.

Things have become so bad that last month, WPSI announced that
not a single tiger had been sighted in the Panna national park – home to 34
tigers in official records – for the last two years.

Wildlife biologist Raghu Chudawat estimates “not more than eight
to 10 tigers” are left in Panna.

He says that at least 13 tigers with radio devices attached to
collars in the park and being monitored by his team had gone missing recently.

A report by a panel of experts appointed by India’s Supreme
Court has also admitted that the sighting of tigers “continued to be difficult”
in Panna, and the tiger population in the park had “crashed, probably due to
poaching”.

Rattled by these reports, the state government has launched a
second count of tigers in the Panna park after independent wildlife officials
dismissed an initial count which showed no decline in its tiger population.

Migration

Officials say that the poachers usually poison tiger food or
electrocute them.

The cats are mainly killed when they stray out of the
high-security park boundaries.

A leopard killed by poachers

A former senior
forest officer, SB Lavlekar, is sceptical about what he describes as a “hue and
cry” by independent wildlife NGOs over declining tiger numbers in the state’s
parks.

“Yes, tigers are being poached, but tigers are also being born.
Also tigers have a tendency to shift their base. They have migrated from some of
their homes, and that is why they are missing there,” he says.

Mr Lavlekar claims that tigers are now being sighted in areas
like Morena and Dindori, where they were never seen before.

Wildlife officials say tiger remains are mostly in demand in
China and east Asian countries – tiger bones, for example, are used in
traditional medicine.

“Earlier, only tiger bones were in demand. Now the skin, claws,
nails – everything fetches a good price,” says Raghu Chudawat, a wildlife
biologist.

For the moment, wildlife officials in Madhya Pradesh say that
they have stepped up patrolling and monitoring the ponds where the tigers go for
their water.

“But nothing is foolproof,” admits a senior official.

The fresh official count might now throw up some clues about how
foolproof the security in the tiger habitat is.

[Author]

May 10, 2005 at 11:13 AM