Bihar may be new tiger trouble spot

Hindustan Times , Tuesday, May 17, 2005
Correspondent : Imran Khan
Bihar may bring in more bad news when India begins its elaborate tiger census in a few months. The state's officials are struggling to account for its missing big cats.The Valmiki national park in West Champaran district has reported an alarming drop in tiger population after its own census last month."The tiger numbers in the sanctuary are not encouraging, but this isn't the final number. We have to look into it again," said BA Khan, chief of wildlife conservation, in Patna. But he declined to provide statistics.Official sources, however, put the number of tigers in the park at about 35, compared to 52 counted in 2003 and 56 a year earlier."The number of tigers has come down to less than 40," a senior official associated with the Project Tiger conservation programme told the agency.A team from the forest department would visit the park by the month-end to study the new count. To conduct the census, officials took help from villagers and cattle grazers living around the sanctuary to learn about spots frequented by tigers and their watering holes.The tiger population at the Valmiki reserve is said to have fallen drastically in the last five years.In 1990, the sanctuary was estimated to have had 80 tigers and 31 leopards.A forest official said that tiger numbers have also dropped in the wildlife reserves in Jamui and Kaimur districts because of population pressure, poaching and deforestation.India, once considered the home of the big cats, is now estimated to have just over 3,500 tigers.The Project Tiger programme started in 1970s was credited with arresting the decline till media reports this year pointed to fewer or rare sightings of the animal in several parks, especially Sariska and Ranthambore in Rajasthan.The Central Government recently admitted that poachers might have wiped off the entire tiger population in Sariska.

 
SOURCE : Hindustan Times, Tuesday, May 17, 2005
 


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