Madhya Pradesh: High mortality rate eclipses tiger conservation success

Bhopal: High tiger mortality has overshadowed conservation success stories, some of which have attracted global attention, in Madhya Pradesh.

Sample the story of famed Panna Tiger Reserve, called in conservation parlance a "zero-to-hero" case.

In 2002, the Panna reserve forest, covering districts of Chhattarpur, Panna and Damoh in parched Bundelkhand region of MP, boasted of housing a healthy tiger population of 29.

Seven years later, the whole population of big cats in the tiger reserve had gone extinct.

It's a similar story in other tiger reserves where high mortality rate has led to a decline in population in MP from 710 in 2001-02 to 308 in 2014, as per reports of National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA).

"I would say tiger conservation in MP is in a total mess. The high mortality rate is a clear indication of it," conservationist Ajey Dubey said.

Almost one-tenth of total tiger population of the state has perished in 2016 in territorial fights and poaching, which speaks volumes on conservation by the state forest department, he said.

Of total tiger population of 308 in MP, as per the 2014 tiger census, 30 were killed in territorial fights and poaching in 2016.

According to Mr Dubey, growing incidents of territorial killings witnessed in recent times indicate poor grassland management in different parks leading to decline in prey base in the protected areas.

This has caused the big cats to stray into other tigers' territories for food, giving rise to territorial fights and subsequent killings. But, majority of tiger deaths is due to rampant poaching in all the six tiger reserves in the state - Panna, Bandhavgarh, Kanha, Bori-Satpura, Sanjay-Dubri and Pench.

Poaching of tigers is done either for commercial purpose by the animal organ traffickers or for witchcraft by the local tribals.

Incidentally, only 11 of total 28 tiger deaths in 2017 were reported in the region. Besides, prosecution is too weak to instill fear among the poachers, Mr Dubey said.

Encroachment of tiger corridor, particularly in Shahdol forest range of Bandhavgarh national park, coupled with poor patrolling and monitoring in the corridors, has led to rise in poaching cases.

Elaborating on the conservation steps in the state, additional principal chief conservator of forest (APCCF) of MP Dilip Kumar said, "It was a big challenge for us to reintroduce tiger population in the reserve forest. We had launched species recovery programme in 2012 under which a habitat has been developed and big cats reintroduced in the tiger reserve."

"We have taken many initiatives for conservation of tigers such as developing habitat reserves and relocation of villages from core areas," he said.