Tulsi does not talk much. His monosyllables are as muffled as his footsteps on the leafy jungle floor. He walks slow, slightly slouched, and doesn’t look like he ever tires. The only giveaway in that stoic gait — his eyes move rapidly, almost anxious to spot anything before the jungle declares his presence.

“Animal senses are so much stronger. You walk fast, make noise or smell strong and you are exposed. In any case, whenever you see a tiger here, you must know that it has already seen you ten times,” he mutters as he stops to make note of a bear footprint. “No animal will harm you for nothing,” he assures before adding with a hint of smile, “The bear, of course, is a little moody.” And he’s off again.

Tulsi is a forest beat guard. From Buxa in West Bengal to Pench in Maharashtra, you can find him everywhere. He is wise, and a little proud. “You needn’t carry water here. I can tell you where to drink from. And there are leaves that can keep you going for days,” he tells me as I offer him a swig from my mineral water bottle. Tulsi is happiest when he walks his beat. “It’s like home. I know every tree here.”

Ask any tiger expert worth his stripes, and he will agree that nothing teaches you more about the jungle and its animals, than walking that extra forest mile. And that is what these poorly paid men do every day around the year. Project Tiger director Rajesh Gopal agrees that a vast knowledge pool remains untapped at the lowest level. "I envy those who live truly close to the earth, people like Manglu Baiga, a living legend in Kanha. Somehow, they just know what goes on inside the forest. The instinctive knowledge of such simple people outshines scientific learning," he says.

So while the new tiger monitoring protocol has its obvious merits, it seems a little ironical that we have to depend on the Mark-and-Capture statistical module to estimate the tiger population with a 10 per cent error margin instead of depending on the robust field knowledge of the ground staff.

“Every beat guard knows the status of tigers in his area fairly well. If we have an exaggerated tiger population today, it is because we have deliberately fudged the count. No new method can work unless that mindset changes. And if you are ready to come clean, you just need to ask the beat guards and simply add up,” says PK Sen, former director, Project Tiger.

But the morale of the ground staff has been nearly broken. Due to a recruitment freeze, most of them remain casual workers for as many as 10 years. This also means that most of them are too old for effective monitoring work. As another corollary, too many beats are unattended due to vacancies. Those who have permanent jobs earn less — despite hardship postings inside forests — than their counterparts in the police force.

In many tiger reserves, beats are unreasonably large. Any beat larger than 10 sq km means the area won't be effectively covered by the beat guard who moves on foot. Very few reserve managers are trained in wildlife or even interested in field work. Some even prefer to stay away from the reserves. In such a scenario, when the same management asked the beat staff to produce paper tigers year after year, the institution gradually collapsed.

Gopal acknowledges the problem: “The inference drawn from the data would depend on the authenticity of data collection and reporting. However, by making the process very simple, where the stress is not on numbers but more on signs, by making the observer directly fill in the data in the field, we have tried to minimise the tendency of reporting inflated numbers.”

The Project Tiger director also assures that the system is foolproof as the data generated by the initial survey will be analysed in combination with data generated from fewer sampling units but with much more intensive and vigorous scientific methodology.

"Scientific wildlife management techniques help us understand the tiger’s needs and evaluate its habitat better. Science also helps us estimate tiger numbers more reliably. For the first time, we will have a tiger atlas of India. We are concerned about the fall in the number in certain areas and must evolve region-specific protocols and monitoring systems in the GIS domain. Science should not replace but complement our traditional knowledge," he said.

Sen, however, insists on the urgent need to redraw tiger beats in reasonable sizes and recruit ground staff all over the country: "We have to get our basics right as we go hightech. Nothing can substitute daily physical monitoring of tigers. It’s simple and very cost effective in a labour intensive country like India,” he said.

Ask Tulsi how much money would make him happy, and his eyes smile. He points at Gopal, walking silently behind us. A casual labourer, young Gopal was drawn to the jungle following his father who still works as a beat guard. "His father can't walk anymore. And this boy is so good. He has a sort of sixth sense about the forest. He is always walking with me," Tulsi pats Gopal on his head. Then, for a moment, he forgets his own jungle rule. "But I have told him to look for a job outside. His father will retire next year. A daily wager can't run the household. And there is a ban on recruitment," Tulsi sounds unfamiliar and loud.

A few kilometres ahead, he offers me his meal, wrapped in a piece of cloth. As I settle down atop a wooden watchtower to sample his light brown baked parched rice, he scrutinises multiple cracks in the cement surface at the water hole below. “I told our ranger saab last week. If we don’t repair it soon, it will go dry before summer."

I remember walking with Tulsi at Sariska. Once it was established that no tiger was left there, he told me how early warnings were ignored by the top brass. He looked helpless. Pathetic.

Months back, now much-maligned but once-celebrated former field director of Ranthambhore Fateh Singh Rathore told me the golden rule: "We must take the beat guards seriously. The best park manager is one who listens to his beat guards. That's the best way to feel the pulse of the forest.” Rathore knew the entire reserve as good as his beat guards and was always on the go.

These days, the Fateh Singhs have become bigger than the big cat. These days, scientists give themselves over six months to get an approximate tiger count. These days, the Tulsis are not sure whether they are supposed to overstate their tigers or report the truth.

It helps that the Tulsis don’t talk much. Their monosyllables are as muffled as their footsteps…

The Method

WHAT

Since the inception of Project Tiger in 1972, individual states counted their tigers and often threw up inflated numbers to earn brownie points. As early as 1979, international experts pointed out how the percentage increase in tigers in India since 1972 was unrealistic compared to the increase in Serengeti's lion population.

In the Eighties, the number game boiled over and our tiger population crossed even the 4,000 mark. Given the trend of over-reporting, experts believe the present official figure of 3,642 is highly exaggerated. The actual number of tigers in India is feared to be less than 1,000.

WHY

Forced by reports of dwindling tiger numbers, the Centre decided to conduct the national tiger census and come up with a realistic figure. The Project Tiger, Wildlife Institute of India and Indian Institute of Statistics jointly worked out a detailed method — Tiger Habitat and Population Evaluation System — which the Centre claims will set the record straight.

Expert Speak

The new system, when in place, is supposed to work as a monitoring tool not only for the tiger and its habitats but also for the entire wilderness biodiversity resource. It will also help land use planning for agriculture, communication network, mineral resources etc.

The end-product of this exercise is not the number of tigers but an indication that there has been a change in that number, with an understanding of the factors that have caused this change. Once we can detect site-specific changes, we can address them with timely intervention by management and policy decisions.

PR SINHA, director, Wildlife Institute of India

HOW

In the first phase, the tiger landscapes will be scanned for carnivore signs like pugs, scratch or scat. Next, scanning will be done through line transact method where officials follow linear tracks to record the signs of herbivore presence and the range of vegetation. Each finding will be recorded for its latitude and longitude to ascertain the relative abundance on the map.

In the second phase, sample blocks from each density—high, medium, low and no—areas will be picked up and scanned extensively with technologies like camera trapping, digital pugmark photography and DNA analysis, depending on the density. Sample size of the landscape will be determined in a way so that the population range remains limited to 10 per cent.

Finally, both sets of data will be analysed together and we will have remotely sensed satellite data in GIS domain and high spatial resolution field data.

WHEN

The census started on January 16 (on January 5 for Sunderbans). The first phase will be over this month, except in Arunachal Pradesh which has sought time till mid-March. Intensive survey of sample blocks starts next month. The final report is not expected before September.

Catching the tiger by its trail

PENCH, Maharashtra, January 21-26

The management claimed 24 tigers, five cubs included. "In Maharashtra, we also count our cubs," assured a Forest Ministry official from Nagpur with a wry smile that could earn him an encounter cop's holster. "You must know that it's a positive sign when we have so many cubs." But the next moment he sounded concerned. "The only problem in our state is the strange indifference of the government towards settling compensation claims. Unless we have enough funds for that, retaliatory killings may start. Otherwise, Pench is doing fine," he volunteered to offer free access.

So once the range officers _ rather keen to escort around _ were told off, the truth began to surface. After about 30 km on foot and dry meals with bottled water, the ground staff opened up. Stories followed: the incredible tale of a wild boar that killed and devoured a village dog and its puppies; the giant python that entered a hut to swallow a chicken alive. And the pugmarks. A mature male on the prowl on a dry nullah; and a big mamma with her very young cub on a bridle path.

Also, the first contradiction became apparent: Leopards are officially fewer in numbers here but sighted more often than tigers. Even the smarter ones among our forest managements are not smart enough.

Pench has a decent tiger presence for its size. But the number game continues. Ironically, the ground staff know by heart where each of their tigers is. Off the record, they can count about 12. For the rest, try the files at Field Director Jarnail Singh's office. That is if you can get around listening to his outrageous plans for raising a couple of crores annually by constructing plush hotels and promoting mega tourism in Pench.

BUXA, West Bengal, February 7-12

To anyone who has been to the post-2004 Sariska, Buxa seems quite familiar. Like in Sariska, leopards roam everywhere with the confidence of the top predator in a tiger-free territory. Like in Sariska, forest villagers laugh off the prospects of any tiger presence. Large cattle munch away as nonchalantly. The forest guards look as uneasy...

But the good news first: Buxa is not Sariska. Now the bad news: Buxa will never be a Sariska.

So long as there are virgin forests in the adjacent stretches of Bhutan's Phipsu Wildlife Sanctuary, stray tigers will always be found on this side of the international border. And taking cover under this small floating population, indifferent government policies and lax management will continue to allow grazing, felling and poaching before the last of Buxa's few surviving tigers disappear. At present, there are indications of four or five tigers in BTR. The official count has been hovering around 30 since it leapfrogged to 33 from 15 during 1985-1989.

The ground staff know the truth better than anyone. So what do they have after three days of survey? Four pugmarks, a few scat samples, a scratch mark, an old kill and a claim of sighting by some villager. A number of them confide that the tiger number won't exceed 5-6. The villagers discount even such a modest claim.

Field Director LG Lepcha admits he doesn't expect more than 10 tigers. Dy FD (East) Shubhonkar Sengupta is two weeks old in the Reserve and wants to believe he will find a few more. Dy FD (west) Rajiv Sharma simply refuses to discuss the numbers he has been furnishing since 2004. His junior IFS Richa Diwedi visited Sariska on a field trip as a student of Wildlife Institute of India in late 2004 before joining work here last year. Didn't Buxa welcome her to a déjà vu? She prefers to go as blank as the field data sheets most of her foot soldiers have brought home.

NAGARJUNSAGAR-SRISAILAM, Andhra Pradesh, January 18-23

Where everyone is scared of becoming a soft target, true figures are hard to come by. The forest staff at Nagarjuna Sagar-Srisailam Tiger Reserve (NSSTR) is fighting mindblocks to come clean with the actual stock of tigers here. But the greater challenge before the staff is to find safe access to a forest where too many people are on the prowl, and none is ready to wear the stripes.

The insurgents, embedded in the reserve, and the special force — the CRPF and Greyhound commandoes — try hard not to give away their identities. The forest employees go without uniforms so that they are not mistaken for the police. And in plain clothes, they run the risk of the police taking them for insurgents.

On the first day of the census, a CRPF party manhandled forest staff camping in Mallapurpenta zone, dismissing their identity cards as false. The same day, an insurgent-police encounter left two cops injured at Bairluty inside the forest. Within a week, the insurgents destroyed the Mannanore tourism centre.

Meanwhile, the forest staff courageously, and desperately, looked for tiger signs. Markapur division had reported half of NSSTR's 70 official tigers last year. With just 14 pugmarks in his collection and only one day to go, DFO S. Saravanan wanted to count each as a different tiger. Then on the final day, his division claimed another 16 tigers.

Atmakur DFO Ashok Kumar also claimed that the 26 pugmarks collected in his division amounted to 26 tigers. Field Director KN Banerjee, an Andhraite named after SN Banerjee, will now wait for the experts from Delhi to verify the claims. For now, they can be a little wishful. Numbers apart, at least the tiger has survived this mess.

RANTHAMBHORE, Rajasthan, February 15-21

IN the last home of the striped cat in this state, the staff knows this job by heart. In the last one year, they have done it three times. After The Indian Express expose last year, a census was conducted last May but no figures were offered. Next a joint census involving WII scientists and private experts, brought down the tiger population from 47 to 26. Again, a counting exercise was undertaken last month by the management. These days the staff are again looking for tiger signs for the national census. Chances are the numbers will become ‘‘more realistic’’ this time.

Deputy Field Director R S Shekhawat is a hard taskmaster but he agrees that defending a tiger population of 26 will be difficult. ‘‘I don’t think we have that many here. But we have a viable population. There is still time to get our acts together and save this park,’’ he says.

Census fatigue is showing on some. A few guards seem too casual while making plaster casts—so much so that one impression came with a missing finger. Finding pugmarks is not difficult though. When the tigers walk on dust tracks, you can’t miss their footprints. And when they walk off roads, they are simply untraceable. Thankfully, the big cats usually prefer clean dust roads to thorny jungle floors. Their pads are as delicate as your domestic cat.

What makes Ranthambhore unique is the presence of tourist vehicles during the census operation. While every other tiger reserve declared the forest off limit for tourists during the census, here the management decided in favour of a tactical co-existence. After all, it’s tourism that keeps the economy going at Sawai Madhopur.