The National Tiger Conservation Authority’s 2018 tiger census report was released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 29. The biggest success of the tiger conservation was not in the numbers but keeping the geographical distribution intact, the scientist said. “My problem with the census report is not the numbers but the lack of vision shown when the report is out. This conservation model has almost no reach outside the protected area.”Restoring forests way forwardPolitical pressure to show rising tiger numbers was commonplace even in the 1980s when ‘identifying’ individual tigers by their pug marks allowed officials to keep increasing tiger numbers year after year. Yadvendradev V. Jhala of WII used the M-STRiPES application to bring us closer to actual tiger numbers, but the figures are nothing more than estimations.

Source: The Telegraph September 28, 2019 19:52 UTC