Only six tigers left in Palamu Tiger Reserve

The Pioneer , Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Correspondent : Santosh Narayan | Ranchi
The Wild Life Department’s tall claims about expenditure on the big cats, their population has registered a decline in the Palamu Tiger Reserve. A recent report submitted by the Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hydrabad, has put the number in the famed reserve to six only. The figure was 36-38 in 2003.

The revelation came after the Project Tiger, Palamu decided to conduct DNA analysis of scat samples collected between June 2008 and July 2009. The samples were sent to the CCMB to ascertain the exact number of the big cats roaming in the sprawling 1,026 sq km of the tiger reserve.

A total of 92 samples were sent during this period out of which 46 were found fit for the analysis. The samples obtained were subject to PCR amplification using universal primers to check for the presence or absence of DNA. The samples that gave positive results were then amplified with tiger-specific primers to verify whether the samples are of tiger origin.

Micro-satellite PCR and genotype analysis that gave positive amplification with tiger specific primers were conducted to get a minimum number of tigers in the Palamu Tiger Reserve.

According to the DNA testing report, a copy of which is with The Pioneer, out of 46 samples found suitable for the analysis, 21 were positively of tiger origin. The 21 samples on further analysis gave six different tiger DNA fingerprints containing four of males and two of females.

“We conclude that out of the 92 samples collected between June 2008 and July 2009 at the Reserve, we obtained DNA identities of six tigers. This is the minimum number of tigers in Palamu Tiger Reserve, Jharkhand during the collection period mentioned above and is not the absolute number of tigers present in the Reserve,” the document said.

Presence of tigers was found in Mahuadhand, Barwagarha, Baresand and Betla range of the project area. Not calling a spade a spade, the Department of Forest and Environment of Jharkhand, surprisingly, is ready to play a second fiddle to the tiger protection. The department believes that the wild cat are in safe hand of the Maoists, active vehemently in most of the area under the project.

“Department officials have no access in the 60 per cent area of the Palamu Tiger Reserve. The Naxals don’t allow us to work in Kutku dam and Mandal dam area. In other areas as well we can collect samples in the daytime only and not allowed to stay in nights. Such obstacles affect the work of the project.

“However we think that tigers are more protected from poaching and other human interventions in the Maoist-dominated territories and their density would have more in such areas,” said a senior official associated with the Wild Life on the condition of anonymity.

Had the total area of the Reserve been surveyed, the Department thinks, the count of felines would have reached somewhere near 15-17. “We are unable to manage the controlled areas. Local villages sometimes indulge in poaching of herbivorous such as deer, wild boar etc disturbing the food chain of tiger. We do 62-hour-long round-the-clock patrolling of the fringe area but few cases of poaching take place,” the chief conservator of Forest, Wild Life and Biodiversity, SK Sharma.

Sharma also underlines the role of error-free sampling technique of DNA fingerprinting for the lower count of the big cat. “The chance of duplicity is eliminated in this case. Pug marks and camera trap techniques were not free from error and put the erroneous figure,” he clarified.

The Palamu Tiger Reserve was one of the first 9 reserves to be brought under the umbrella of the Project Tiger in 1973. The Reserve has a budget of Rs 3.5 crore annually.

According to the latest tiger census report released on February 12, 2008 by the National Tiger Conservation Authority, the current tiger population stands at 1,411.

 
SOURCE : http://www.dailypioneer.com/262991/Only-six-tigers-left-in-Palamu-Tiger-Reserve.html
 


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