Offical tiger figures 'grossly over-inflated'
By Peter Foster in New Delhi
Last Updated: 3:01pm BST 23/05/2007
Peter Foster: Taking on the two P's
In pictures: Tigers under threat
Tiger number in India have fallen by more than half in just ten years confirming conservationists worst fears that previous "official" figures were grossly over-inflated.
Royal Bengal tigress Krishna sits with her cubs at the Alipore Zoological Garden in Calcutta, India
Preliminary results from a major Indian government census on the Bengal tiger show there may be as few as 1,500 left in the wild with the species rapidly heading for extinction.
The scientific survey was ordered by the government in 2005 after it emerged that one of India's leading tiger reserves, Sariska in Rajasthan, had been completely emptied of tigers, provoking a national scandal.
Early results from India's tiger heartlands - the four central Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chattisgarh and Maharashtra - show that numbers have fallen by up to 65 per cent in the worst affected areas.
In Madhya Pradesh, the state that is home to the greatest concentration of Indian tigers, it is now estimated that there are 259 surviving animals, down from 710 in the 2003 census - a fall of two-thirds.
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The figures bear out the claims of leading conservationists that India's previous "official" figure of 3,624 wild tigers was grossly over-inflated and that the true number was closer to 1,500.
More detailed results from the survey are due to be published in December, however they are not expected to buck these downward trends which show a near disastrous drop-off in numbers.
Rampant poaching, habitat encroachment as well as Chinese and Tibetan demand for skins and body parts reaching unsustainable levels are being blamed.
However, officials have cautioned that the new numbers in part reflect improved, scientific survey methods rather than actual losses of animals to poachers. Whatever the reasons, the reduced tiger numbers are no longer in doubt.
The survey by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) used camera traps to identify individual tigers by their unique stripe patterns as opposed to the discredited method of counting pugmarks - tiger footprints - which led to an over-estimate of tiger numbers.
Belinda Wright, head of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, a leading tiger conservation charity in India, said the census data should provide a final opportunity for a fresh start in the campaign to save India's dwindling tiger population.
"Let's not play the numbers game. At last we can start dealing with reality and once and for all shelve the fallacies of the past which grossly over-inflated the numbers of tigers in India. Now we know the numbers we need to start dealing with the problem," she said.
Among the most disturbing information provided by the survey is the lack of suitable prey for tigers living outside India's protected forest reserves and national parks.
At the last major tiger census it was estimated that two-thirds of all Indian tigers were living outside the protected reserves and without sufficient food, those numbers are expected to fall rapidly.
"The prey populations are much higher inside the protected areas," said Qamar Qureshi, a scientist with the WII, "prey distribution outside the protected forest is very, very poor and can't sustain tiger populations."
Conservationists now estimate that there are only two major viable and sustainable tiger populations in India - the Corbett range in Uttarakhand and the Kanha range in Madhya Pradesh - which still have the required numbers and habitat range.
The fate of the Indian tiger is also under further threat from Chinese plans to re-open their domestic market in trade in tiger parts, using farmed tigers which now number up to 5,000 in the Chinese mainland.
A high-level delegation of Chinese diplomats has been in New Delhi lobbying the Indian government for support in lifting the ban ahead of a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
Supporters of the scheme say using farmed tigers will reduce demand for illegal supplies of tiger which come mainly from poachers in India and provide a viable long-term source of body parts for traditional Chinese medicine.
However an international coalition of 35 of the world's leading tiger conservation groups has condemned the plans, saying it will have a precisely opposite effect - fuelling demand, increasing poaching and hastening the demise of the species.
