NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 18: You can knock off two more tigers from the 1,411 count. Days after the national tiger count came up with this alarmingly low figure for tigers left in the wild, forest officials have seized two tiger skins — one of an adult and the other of a cub — from an area described as one of the few success stories of the tiger census.

The seizures were made Saturday in Kerala’s Wayanad area, part of the tiger belt in the Nilgiri biosphere spanning tiger reserves at Nagarhole-Bandipur (Karnataka), Mudumalai (Tamil Nadu) and Wayanad (Kerala) which the tiger count says has the “single largest population of tigers in India” — 280 tigers over 10,800 sq km.

The two tiger skins were seized by a Flying Squad of the Kerala Forest Department. “Based on intelligence inputs, we seized two tiger skins from different locations in Wayanad district. One was of an adult, a six-foot-long tiger, while the other is of a nine-month-old cub,” said C V Rajan, Divisional Forest Officer, Flying Squad.

“Though the tigers could have been poached from Karnataka, it is also possible they were poached from the Wayanad Reserve. The investigations are still on,” he said.

According to Rajan, so active is the tiger trade in the area that fake tiger skins were also seized last year while two tiger skins were found within a month in June 2007.

The latest tiger count describes the Wayanad-Nagarhole-Bandipur-Mudumalai belt as “a fine example of managing inter-state tiger reserves for establishing populations that have a good chance of long term persistence” but clearly this area needs enforcement attention.

Data available with the Wildlife Protection Society of India says Karnataka accounted for four tiger skins, one suspected poaching and one case of poaching; Tamil Nadu reported one tiger skin and three suspected deaths while Kerala came across three tiger skins and one suspected death last year itself. Elsewhere in the country this year, at least three tigers have been killed while one has been paralysed in the Panna Reserve.

“According to me, tigers will be poached wherever they are found, given the poor enforcement. The time for making reports and committees is over. We need enforcement,” said Belinda Wright, member of the National Wildlife Board.

Others point out that the “successes” of the tiger census are under grave threat. “This is a tiger belt which needs immediate attention. The borders between Karnataka and Kerala are very porous. There has been a history of poachers from Kerala crossing over to Karnataka to poach in the tiger reserves,” said Kartick Satyanarayan, member, Advisory Board, Wildlife Crime Control Bureau of India.

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