Status of tigers, co-predators and prey in India, 2022

भर

The total tiger population in India was noted to be 3,682 in 2022, says the report Status of tigers, co-predators and prey in India. The report was published in 2022, and is the fifth edition of a nation-wide survey of tigers undertaken every four years since 2006. The assessment was conducted by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) along with State Forest Departments and Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun. The publication also includes information on prey, habitat, and anthropogenic factors that impact the tiger population. 

The report showcases data sourced from five regions that sustain tiger populations in India, which were then divided into five primary landscapes according to the habitats' biogeography and connectedness. These are: Shivalik Hills and Gangetic Plains, Central India and Eastern Ghats, Western Ghats, North Eastern Hills and Brahmaputra Flood Plains, and Sundarbans.

This 494-page document has been divided into six sections: Status of tigers in India (Section 1); Landscapes (Section 2); Plant invasions and restoration priorities in India (Section 3); Habitat connectivity across tiger-bearing landscapes (Section 4); Camera-trapped sites (Section 5); and Synthesis: Conservation implications (Section 6).  

    वस्तुस्थिती

  1. The study employed camera traps to collect data, which were placed at 32,803 locations spread across 175 sites. These traps captured 47,081,881 photographs of which 97,399 were of tigers. The areas where camera trapping was not possible due to unfavourable scenes, such as low tiger density in that area, the researchers extracted DNA from scats using molecular tools. The study encompassed forested habitats across 19 Indian states. 

  2. The report notes a 6.1 per cent increase in the population of tigers between 2006 and 2022 in India. 

  3. In 2022, the Shivalik-Gangetic plains witnessed a rise of 27 per cent in its tiger population compared to the year 2018. The states of Bihar, Uttarakhand and Uttar Pradesh are included in this habitat. 

  4. The total tiger population in the Western Ghats habitat – comprising areas in Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu – was estimated to be 1,087 in 2022. This is 106 tigers more since the last assessment in 2018. 

  5. The tiger population in the North East Hills and Brahmaputra Plains habitat was 236 in 2022 – an increase of 17 tigers since 2018. This habitat includes areas in Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Mizoram, Nagaland, and northern West Bengal.  

  6. Nearly 101 tigers were recorded in the Sundarbans in 2022, which is an increase of 13 tigers from the 2018 estimates. Poaching and hunting of spotted deer, wild pig and other prey species could lead to depletion of natural prey of tigers in this landscape, the report notes.

  7. Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka show the highest tiger populations among all states in India. The number of tigers in Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana has decreased over the years. Odisha marked a decrease from 28 tigers in 2018 to 20 in the year 2022. Tiger populations across the world are primarily depleted due to poaching, which is fuelled by the illegal demand for their body parts, the report notes.


    Focus and Factoids by Alisha Khan.

लेखक

Qamar Qureshi, Yadvendradev V. Jhala, Satya P. Yadav, and Amit Mallick

स्वामित्व हक्क

National Tiger Conservation Authority, Government of India, New Delhi; and Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun

प्रकाशनाची तारीख

2022

टॅग्ज

#tiger-reserve #tiger-population

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