Tiger Census 2023: Royal Bengal Tiger is the national animal of India. Its scientific name is Panthera Tigris. The Bengal tiger is a striped animal with a thick yellow coat of fur with dark stripes. The Royal Bengal tiger is considered as a symbol of strength, grace, resilience, power, and agility.
By 1973, the population of tigers was drastically decreasing and its conservation became a major concern for the country and authorities so PROJECT TIGER was initiated in 1973 with the aim to protect tigers from extinction and preserve areas of biological importance to the tiger. The National animal of India, The Royal Bengal Tiger was adopted National animal of India in April 1973. Before 1973, the lion was the national animal of India.
History of Tiger Census:
For the development of any area, any species, there is a need for information about their number, their behavior, and their aspect. Before technology took its due turn, we used to rely on traditional methods.
- Tigers were traditionally tracked by shikaris from the pugmark.
- After the first census, which was based on Pugmark Count, by Winter- Blyth a forest officer from Odisha Named Saroj Raj Choudhury modified the approach for tiger count. Forest officials from various places were in the favor of improvising on the traditional pugmark method.
- Discarded pugmark method by bringing deficiencies of dealing with abundance estimation. After the Sariska debacle in 2004 -2005 and in Panna 2006-07, poaching caused the total extinction of tigers but official records based on the pugmark census showed that tigers are still present in the country.
- This incident worked as a wake-up call and after a lot of hue and cry in the media Prime minister introduced the appointed Tiger Taskforce with a target to develop a strategy for tiger conservation, and recommended the creation of the National Tiger Conservation Authority and wildlife protection act.
- It was also decided to have country-wide monitoring of Tigers and their ecosystem that will be based on the modern scientific protocols developed by Wildlife Institute Of India in collaboration with Project tiger directorate and Madhya Pradesh forest department After this after a span of 4 years a survey is done known as “Status of tiger, co-predators, prey, and their habitat“.
- The first assessment was done in 2006 and it was reviewed by an International carnivore expert and the IUCN and methodology was standardized after a survey conducted in the Satpura landscape in a 20,000km area.
Area Divided for Survey:
For ease of survey country is divided into 5 tiger occupied regions;
- Central Indian and the Eastern Ghats landscape
- Western Ghats Area
- Sundarban Area
- Northeastern hill and Brahmaputra flood landscape
- Shivalik Gangetic landscape
|
Number of Tigers in Each Landscape Across Different Surveys |
|||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Landscape |
2006 |
2010 |
2014 |
2018 |
2022 |
| Central Indian and the Eastern Ghats | 601 | 601 | 688 | 1033 | 1161 |
| Western Ghats | 402 | 534 | 776 | 981 | 824 |
| Sundarban area | NA | 70 | 76 | 88 | 184 |
| Northeastern area and Brahmaputra flood landscape | 100 | 148 | 201 | 219 | 194 |
| Shivalik Gangetic landscape | 297 | 353 | 485 | 646 | 804 |
| Total | 1411 | 1706 | 2226 | 2967 | 3167 |
First Census on Tiger:
- In 2006 and tiger population was estimated to be 1,411.
- For the first time, it determined the size and area of the tiger population and also focused on connectivity between the habitat at the national level.
- Sundarban was left out of this assessment as this area was hostile and till then protocol for sampling was not developed.
2nd Census on Tiger:
- Done in 2010.
- The tiger population increased to 1706.
- This census included the Sundarbans tigers which were 70 in number.
3rd Census on Tiger:
- Done in 2014
- Tiger estimate has increased to 2226 and India is home to almost 70 percent world’s tiger population.
- Karnataka has the most number of tigers with 408 as per count.
4th Census on Tiger:
- This was in 2018-19 taken using science, technology, and available tools, and released on 29th July 2019 on International Tiger Day.
- The census was done with the Digital Tiger census technique of double sampling and an android application named M-stripes that uses GPS to geotag photo evidence. It also has automated segregation of cameras that trap photographs of species using artificial intelligence and neural network model.
Tiger Census Report of India
5th Census on Tiger
- According to the fifth cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation (2022), The tiger population in India grew by 200 from 2018 to 2022, released April 9, 2023.
- The number of tigers in India was 3,167 in 2022, up from 2,967 in 2018.
- The growth rate is About 6.7% (from 2018 to 2022)— significantly slower than the 33% growth rate during 2014-2018.
- Shivalik Hills and Gangetic Plains saw a significant increase in the tiger population
- The Nilgiri cluster (Nagarahole to Biligiriranga Hills) is the largest tiger population in the world.
- Tiger occupancy in Northeast Hills, Jharkhand, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana showed a decline.
The population of tigers is increasing due to steps like project tiger, NGT, and TraMCA, providing suitable habitats, wildlife sanctuaries, or national parks. But there are anthropogenic difficulties, livestock grazing in tiger reserves was high in Sariska, Buxa, and Dudhwa. There is a decline in the status of Palamu, Dampa tiger reserve. There is a need to pay specific attention to each tiger’s reserves according to the requirement and save the population of species that represent the country’s glory.