The Tiger

This is a compact infographic explaining why tigers are endangered. It is a broad-brush infographic covering the main issues. India recently announced the success of Project Tiger and said that there are now 3,167 tigers in India which is more than double the 1,411 recorded when the census began in 2006. This is based on a World Wildlife Fund for Nature camera trap count . I remain pessimistic about the future prospects of the Bengal tiger in India because the human population continues to grow. Tigers need a huge amount of space. Individual males need home ranges the size of a city. The reserves are too small to sustain decent-sized tiger populations. And poachers continue to kill tigers for body parts to supply the Chinese 'superstition market' believing that eating tiger flesh and drinking tiger bone wine does them some sort of magical good. It is all BS.

Well, today, we can answer the question in the title with a certain amount of accuracy because the World Wildlife Fund for Nature has recently reported that they have recorded 3,167 tigers in India which is more than double the 1,411 recorded when the census began in 2006. Camera trap counts a tiger. 7-Tiger CT_©Ullas Karanth-WCS This information is fresh in news media today and I am looking at a report in The Times dated Tuesday, April 11, 2023. They used cameras traps which made the recording of tiger numbers more accurate. In the past they used scats i.e. faeces and pug marks (paw prints) to count tigers or estimate their numbers. They know the tigers' habitats. They place 32,500 cameras in these habitats mounted on trees or posts. They take millions of photographs automatically because they are motion sensor activated. The cameras are set up in pairs which allows them to capture both sides of each tiger and record the stripes which are unique like a human fingerprint. In this w...

Counting tigers is notoriously difficult, in part because they are very secretive. They need to be to survive the activities of people. "Subjective judgments" have to be made. When you do that self serving interests can get in the way of making good judgments! The tiger count in India was overestimated at one time and it came as a shock when the figure was revised downward. It is almost possible to image the scenario whereby the tiger becomes extinct in the wild without people knowing about it. In the old days counting tigers was carried out by pug marks and scats. "Pug marks" are the footprint of an animal. The word "pug" means "foot" in Hindi. "Scats" are fecal droppings. Camera traps are also used. These are cameras mounted on trees, rocks and such objects which fire off when a tiger passes in front of it. The positioning of the camera has to be assessed accurately and with wisdom. Both camera traps and radio collars are relia...