The tigers of the Sariska Reserve in Rajasthan have dis-appeared. Simply vanished! The alarm bells are now ringing hard. So loudly that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the state government to find the cause and the culprits. Pronto! And we are once again asking ourselves how can humans and animals live with each other in this crowded planet?

Even though the details remain hazy, it is clear that human inter-vention (read poaching) was responsible for the isappearance of the big cats in Sariska. In the recent past there have been frequent conflicts between humans and animals. Take the case of Mumbai. Last year a spate of leopard attacks left 15 people dead. If in Sariska the big cats were on the receiving end, in Mumbai it was the people. And if you thought Mumbai was bad, think about the people living around the sanctuaries. They live in constant dread of tigers attacking their villages.

Sariska is not an isolated case – poaching is rampant in all the tiger reserves.

At loggerheads
Humans have always shared this planet with other species. Why is there a conflict now? One major reason is that we have slowly encroached into habitats that nature had reserved for others. Many species today are on the verge of extinction. To counter this we reserved some space for them. That’s quite fair, right? Why do people then kill these endangered beings?

TIGER BASICS The geographical range for these-majestic creatures once stretched from the eastern borders of Russia to the edge of the Caspian Sea. Now it has shrunk and tigers sur-vive only in small pockets. They are found in a variety of abitats:from the tropical and deciduous forests of Asia to the coniferous and birch woodlands of Siberia. There are about 5000-7,500 tigers surviving in the wild today. There were eight sub species of tigers but only five remain. These are: Amur (Siberian) tiger Bengal tiger Indochinese tiger South China tiger and Sumatran tiger The Java, Bali and Caspian sub species are extinct. PROJECT TIGER At the turn of the century the tiger population in India was estimated at 40,000. In 1972 it fell sharply and only 1,827 of these regal beasts survived. This decline led to the initiation of Project Tiger in 1973. The concept of wildlife conservation started off in India with Project Tiger. It began with nine tiger reserves covering an area of 16,339 sq km, which has increased to 37,761 sq km in 27 tiger reserves. WHY PROTECT THE TIGER? Besides being stunningly beautiful, tiger is an indicator species. It is at the top of the food chain and reflects the status of the entire ecosystem. To support a viable tiger population, a habitat-must have a good prey base and healthy vegetation.

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