Monitoring Tigers and their Prey

One of the biggest problems of tiger conservation in India has been the general lack of science in the management of Tiger Reserves and other Protected Areas (PAs). This lack has also been a chronic problem in the enumeration of wild tigers. For decades, the establishment followed a highly flawed and unscientific method of counting tigers based on the imprints of tiger pugmarks in the dust. The tall claim that each pugmark was distinct enough to identify the tiger that left it, was widely accepted. This was a convenient technique to inflate tiger numbers and claim that everything was well. It was also a fig leaf, as in the case of the famous Sariska Tiger Reserve in Rajasthan, which lost all its tigers to poaching. Even when tiger numbers had been reduced to just one or two individuals, their paw prints were counted repeatedly to claim that the tiger population was shipshape. It was only when all pugmarks vanished that alarm bells started sounding, by which time it was too late. Had there been a robust, scientific system in place to monitor the number of tigers, the depletion of numbers in Sariska could have been detected in time to avert the catastrophe.

Such a scientific system has been available for over a decade, refined and perfected by renowned tiger biologist Dr. Ullas Karanth in the forests of Karnataka. Using techniques like Line Transect surveys to enumerate prey populations and Camera Trapping to get reliable estimates of tiger numbers, Dr.Karanth has repeatedly demonstrated the robustness of his methods. Fortunately, thanks to the Prime Minister's Tiger Task Force, chaired by Sunita Narain, the old pugmark method has been officially abandoned by the National Tiger Conservation Authority, and scientific methods have been instituted. However, what I've noticed is that a lot of people have learnt the buzzwords without understanding the underlying principles. Thus we have people setting just 4 or 5 remote cameras in the forest and claiming that they are enumerating tiger numbers scientifically through camera trapping. Then there are park managers who send teams of up to 8 people into the forest and claim these to be line transect surveys.

In order to make people aware of these techniques and to enhance their understanding of the nitty gritties involved, the Wildlife Conservation Society's India Program commissioned me to produce a training video to accompany the acclaimed manual "Monitoring Tigers and their Prey' edited by K.Ullas Karanth and James D. Nichols. I'm pleased to say that the training video is now available for viewing on you tube. The link is www.youtube.com/monitoringtigers

Now everyone can at least be aware of the proven scientific techniques that are available to estimate the numbers of wild tigers and their prey.