Balancing the inhabitants of each predators and prey was a key issue enabling a 50% surge in Madhya Pradesh’s tiger inhabitants, serving to the State snag the highest spot within the 2022 census, based on tiger specialists. File
| Photo Credit: A.M. Faruqui
Balancing the inhabitants of each predators and prey was a key issue enabling a 50% surge in Madhya Pradesh’s tiger inhabitants, serving to the State snag the highest spot within the 2022 census, based on tiger specialists. A senior Environment Ministry official instructed The Hindu {that a} related strategy might help type a viable cheetah inhabitants, even because the mission to translocate African cheetahs to M.P. has suffered six deaths.
An replace to the 2022 tiger census publicised final week reported a complete of three,682 beasts, with M.P., for the second time within the final three censuses, reporting the utmost variety of tigers at 785. The State has reported a 50% rise within the variety of tigers for the reason that final census, a bounce exceeded solely by Bihar, which has a a lot decrease 54 tigers. While many components contribute to a state’s tiger inhabitants, specialists instructed The Hindu that the M.P. forest division’s strategy of actively transferring tigers in addition to their prey throughout the State, to steadiness predator and prey inhabitants, was a key indicator of success.
Moving tigers and prey
“The forest department of Madhya Pradesh has demonstrated remarkable commitment and success in active management practices. They have effectively restored low-density areas through incentivised voluntary village relocations, prey supplementation, reintroduction of species such as Barasingha (swamp deer) to new habitats like Satpuda and Bandhavgarh, and the reintroduction of Gaur to Bandhavgarh and Sanjay-Dubri Tiger Reserves. Prey species like chital (spotted deer) have been successfully supplemented in Satpuda, Sanjay Tiger Reserves, Nauradehi, Kuno, and Gandhisagar Wildlife Sanctuaries through translocation from high-density areas such as Pench and Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserves,” notes the 2022 tiger census report, ready by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun and the National Tiger Conservation Authority.
India has 53 tiger reserves, with M.P. accounting for six of them. While the State has probably the most tigers, probably the most populous reserves are the Corbett National Park (CNP), Uttarakhand, adopted by the Bandipur and Nagarhole reserves in Karnataka. The CNP, with an estimated 260 tigers, has almost twice the variety of tigers as Bandhavgarh (135), M.P.’s most populous tiger reserve.
Labour-intensive train
However, 5 out of the six tiger reserves in M.P. have over 50 tigers. This isn’t counting the 563 tigers which have been reported outdoors the reserves, however throughout the State’s forest divisions. Tiger reserves are areas inside nationwide parks, particularly demarcated for tiger conservation. M.P., like many different States, has extra tigers outdoors the reserves than inside them.
“While M.P. historically has a commitment to wildlife conservation and well-trained officers, active prey management is unique to it among other States. This means, for instance, identifying regions that have, say, a large number of chital, and moving some to a region where there are fewer. Once populations of these reach critical numbers in the new area, tigers – if there are too many in one part – are safely translocated here. This is a hard, labour-intensive exercise,” stated Rajesh Gopal, secretary basic of the Global Tiger Forum and a former forest officer who served in M.P.
Protection from poaching
The prevalence of tigers outdoors the reserves may be very giant in each M.P. and Maharashtra. Along with the build-up in prey, the safety accorded to the animals, notably from poaching, has contributed to a constant rise in numbers, stated Qamar Qureshi, a WII wildlife biologist who’s intently concerned with the quadrennial tiger census.
“The Sanjay Dubri tiger reserve used to be empty, but over 8 to 10 years, chital and gaur (Indian bison) have been moved into the reserves and once they reach a critical point, tigers are moved there,” he stated. Currently, there are 16 tigers reported within the Sanjay reserve. “You have to keep pushing. Once a region reaches its saturation point in the number of available prey and tigers, you have to develop new areas,” he added. Several of India’s tiger reserves in Karnataka, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh, that are historically wealthy in tigers, have reached their saturation factors, and central India, with its rising numbers, was absorbing a lot of the expansion, he famous.
Giving nature a serving to hand
While nature normally corrects imbalances between predator and prey, the method can take a very long time. Given the myriad pressures on the pure wild habitat — corresponding to diminishing protected areas in forests, and human-wildlife battle — energetic prey administration was a obligatory conservation device, stated Y.V. Jhala, a former dean of WII who’s intently concerned with lion, tiger and cheetah conservation tasks.
M.P.’s Kuno National Park is presently host to African cheetahs, with six of the 20 already lifeless for the reason that first animals have been translocated in September 2022. “Many of the practices being applied to the cheetah project, of keeping them in enclosures till they adapt, draw from experiences with the tiger and other ungulates,” a senior Environment Ministry official, who declined to be recognized, instructed The Hindu. “To form a viable cheetah population, we need to follow similar principles of active prey management,” the official stated.
