Over a third of India’s wild tiger population resides outside the 50 tiger reserves, the latest All-India Tiger Population Estimation Report has revealed. As many as 1,923 tigers or 65% the total tiger population was found inside tiger reserves and the rest were estimated to have a range that was largely found in neighbouring forest blocks, the government’s report on 2018 tiger population estimation showed.
The 2018 study also estimated 2,967 tigers in India’s forests and they occupy nearly 88,985 sq.kms of area. In the report, the government has described the tigers living outside tiger reserve boundaries as ‘tigers utilizing tiger reserves’ in order to distinguish them from ‘tigers within the tiger reserve’.
Thus, over a third of India’s wild tiger population largely reside in forested patches which are not within the notified area of a tiger reserve. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and Wildlife Institute of India (WII) arrived at an estimated number of such tigers based on camera trap images.
“There is always an issue of defining a number within an area that has a contiguous habitat that can potentially be used by tigers outside of tiger reserves (Tiger Reserves not having hard boundaries but embedded within larger forested areas). In such cases, tigers that are photo-captured within a reserve could potentially have their activity centres way beyond the boundaries of a tiger reserve, but visit and use the TR and thus get photo-captured,” the government report explained.
This estimate of tigers outside the reserves again reinforces the importance of contiguous forest habitats, tiger corridors and sink habitats that ensure the dispersal of tigers between different habitats.
NTCA and WII calculated the estimated numbers and stated that tiger reserves like Corbett, Dudhwa, Bandhavgarh, Pench, Tadoba, Mudumalai, Nagarhole, Bandipur and Sathyamangalam have a sizeable share of such tigers whose home range was largely outside reserves but they also visit the tiger reserve area.
In Corbett, an estimated 231 tigers were found inside the boundaries of the tiger reserve while 35 were found visiting the adjoining forest blocks. While in Kanha, Madhya Pradesh, 88 tigers were found inside tiger reserves and 20 were utilized in the area of the reserve. The Mandla forest division in MP serves as a crucial link for the Kanha- Pench habitat corridor and during the 2018 estimation; nine individual tigers were identified in this division.
“These forests act as a buffer to Kanha tiger reserve. Movement of tigers has been regularly observed between Kanha Tiger reserve and Mandla Forest Division. Hence, protection of this area becomes crucial for dispersing tigers,” the report added.
A large number of tigers roaming outside reserves were found in Uttarakhand, Madhya Pradesh Maharashtra, Karnataka forest divisions, said WII’s Qamar Qureshi, a lead scientist and co-authors of the 2018 tiger population estimation report.
“Some of the forest territorial forest divisions in Uttarakhand, MP, Maharashtra and Karnataka have equal or more tigers than some tiger reserves in the country. Forest departments need to be allocated more funds for wildlife protection and conservation,” he said.
In Maharashtra, Bramhapuri Forest Division shares many of its tigers with Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve. These forests serve as sink habitats to dispersing tigers from Tadoba and are therefore important in long term viability of the central Indian tiger population, the government report claimed. The data is also useful to analyze man-animal conflict as some of the forest blocks are dotted with human settlements- the Brahmapuri and Chandrapur forest divisions are prime examples.
YV Jhala, lead scientist and co-author of the estimation exercise report said that activity centers of the tigers were mapped to determine their range. “We tried to determine the centre of the tiger’s activity to arrive at its range. The tigers have been captured at various locations on camera traps and using the geographical coordinates we were able to determine if tigers were largely found outside the tiger reserve,” Jhala said.
“These tigers that are found largely outside the tiger reserves are important as they ensure gene flow between two habitats and they are vital for gene exchange and survival of this species,” he added.
Independent experts said that this data was encouraging and evidence of functionality of tiger corridors. “It is encouraging to see that almost 1/3rd of tigers are outside Protected Areas. Our camera trapping studies in Maharashtra over the last 5 years also show similar figures. It will be nice to see dispersal events across the 4 years estimation cycles if any such events have been recorded. We need more and more evidence of functionality of corridors to be documented to save them,’ said Milind Pariwakam, a Wildlife Biologist with Wildlife Conservation Trust.
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