In fact, a visit to the Emerald Forest there clearly shows that the Panna Tiger Reserve could be going the Sariska and Ranthambhore way.

A well-known field researcher has submitted a report this week that some 30 tigers may have died or gone missing in the Panna reserve over the past two-and-a-half years. And, the Central Empowered Committee, set up by the Supreme Court, warned last month that unless quick action was taken ‘‘the tiger may never recover here.’’

Local Park officials insist that there is no cause for worry and the number of tigers has remained steady since 2001, when between 30 and 34 were logged. But on the ground, the signs are chilling:

• Till a couple of years back, tourists could frequently spot tigers even on roads here, a fact corroborated by everyone from Park officials to jungle guides. Now even elephants acquired from Sanjay National Park find it difficult to locate tigers for tourists.

• Ken river flows across the Park — three ranges are in the east and one, Chandranagar, in the west. It is the unwritten law of Panna that animals don’t return when they cross the river and enter Chandranagar.

• In other ranges, too, population pressure is huge. If barbed wire and chain link fences were not enough, traps, snares and crude bombs wait for the animals. Primarily meant for herbivores, one such snare killed a tigress in December 2002 (see photo).

• Some villagers inside the core area admit to frequent hunting sprees — a few outsiders accompanied by locals in groups of 25-50 people. While herbivores are routine targets, they say, tigers are not spared. Even the less forthcoming ones admit that they do not feel signs of tiger or leopard presence in the surroundings any more.

• In the entire southern periphery—places like Kishangarh, Paturi, Vikrampura, Amanganj—you are likely to get ‘wildlife objects’ for a price. Many in these areas poach regularly and supply to centres in Uttar Pradesh — like Kanpur and Allahabad — via Niazpur for tanning. Katni, the hub of India’s poaching trade, is just 130 km south of Panna.

• Villagers have right to cultivation and they make good use of large areas between the plateaus or along the river inside the core area. Absence of any buffer zone makes the problem worse as peripheral pressure tells directly on the Park.

• Patrolling is lax, if not absent, in large areas of the park that has several vacancies at the Range officer and game supervisor level

This week, Dr Raghunandan Singh Chundawat, principal investigator, Panna Tiger Research Project, submitted a report documenting the loss of 30 tigers to the Project Tiger directorate. Project Tiger director Dr Rajesh Gopal has already sent a team to Panna to evaluate the situation.

Meanwhile, after inspecting the Park last month to follow up on a petition filed by Belinda Wright (Wildlife Protection Society of India), the Supreme Court’s Central Empowered Committee report on February 18 concluded: ‘‘Panna is showing signs of Sariska...It is necessary to put it right before it is too late. Otherwise the tiger will never recover here.’’

Dr Chundawat says it was a change in the Park management that signalled the decline. Between 1995 and 2002, he says, tiger density in the 542 sq km park had gone up from 2-3 per sq km to 7 per sq km. Then, over the past couple of years, he says that that nine out of the 11 breeding females have either died or gone missing. Some 21 mature cubs have gone the same way.

He says when he alerted the Park authorities, they barred his access to the Park. He got it back only last month, after speaking to top state officials. ‘‘I went back to find the situation really grave,’’ he said.

Meanwhile, Shyamendra Singh alias Vinnyraja, a local royal who has been running an eco-tourism outfit by the Ken for last 20 years, agrees that all is not well with the Park. ‘‘Tigers have become difficult to spot. I can sense some suspicious activities in the jungle. A resident tigress in the tourist zone vanished after March last year. Given the excellent habitat by the riverside, it’s worrying that no other tiger has occupied her zone in the last one year,’’ said Singh.

Panna’s Deputy Field Director Mudrika Singh claimed that while tigers cannot be individually identified, some 34 were counted in a census in January.

Told how no trace of forest officials was found during a 4-hour drive cutting across the National Park in the Chandranagar range, Singh admits there is “some free movement” due to too many villages. “But wildlife density is not too high there,” he justifies.

Singh accepted that his staff needed to be more vigilant. He also acknowledged hunting activities in the region but said there have been no ‘‘confirmed reports’’ of tiger poaching. The real problem, Singh said, is the presence of so many villages around him—there are 13 villages inside the Park and 45 at its peripheries. ‘‘Security will be more effective once we can relocate them. These villagers need to be educated. The Wildlife Act doesn’t have any impact on them,” he rues.

But Madla range officer N S Parihar said that it takes so long to get funds issued for relocation that by the time the money comes, inflation makes it meaningless.