A tiger reserve in India is thriving according to officials. It is doing so well, in fact, that it must be expanded in order to allow the territorial animals to spread out further than they are currently being allowed.
The Jim Corbett reserve in the Himalayan foothills currently covers a vast 500 square miles. However, the conservation efforts have been so effective over the last decade that tiger population in the area has increased by 20 per cent in the last 5 years alone. The number of tigers in the reserve currently stands at 164, but the animals now require more space due to their stringently territorial behaviour. The big-cat has reportedly begun straying into the reserve buffer zones from core areas. Rajesh Gopal of the National Tiger Conservation Authority said: “If we cannot increase the carrying capacity of a reserve, which is easier said than done, there will be internal conflict and mutual killing of tigers.”
In order to prevent this mutual killing within the confines of the reserve, authorities have expanded the current buffer zone by 30 square kilometres. The other major problem with these buffer zones is that they tend to attract poachers – local villagers also tend to kill straying tigers. According to Gopal, the real struggle is to protect these zones from these threats.
The glimmer of hope emitted by the Jim Corbett reserve is, however, somewhat overshadowed by the rest of India’s tiger problems. Protection is undermined by poorly trained, armed and paid guards as well as serious corruption issues. Numbers of the big-cat have been cut in half since 2002, a recent survey revealed – there are currently only 1,411 tigers left in India. Just a century ago there were approximately 40,000 tigers in the thick jungles of India, a figure which makes the modern tally all the more poignant. Efforts by reserves throughout the Asian country show that there is hope that numbers will remain in the wild for some time, but conservationists are sceptical that the dwindling population will ever fully recover.
The Indian government is not showing any signs of giving up, though. It said recently that it would invest US$150 million in its efforts to save the beautiful and increasingly rare animal, some of which will be spent on relocating villages currently within the reserve boundaries. This is a serious issue, as often poor villagers will help poachers kill the big cats for much-needed money.
Life for the tiger on a global scale is also bleak. According to US experts, the number of tigers worldwide dropped to approximately 4000, compared to roughly 100,000 just a century ago. India and wildlife-lovers alike will be hoping that areas like the Jim Corbett reserve will continue to see the tiger thrive.
