The total number of tigers – India’s national animal – has gone down by 21 during last three months.
According to the information collected by the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), three tigers were poached in the country between November 2008 and January 2009. Of these, one tiger was electrocuted in Kanha Tiger Reserve in November 2008, one tiger was poisoned at Wynad, Kerala in December 2008 and another tiger was reportedly electrocuted near Sakoli in Bhandara district of Maharashtra this month.
The WPSI has seized seven tiger skins and a skeleton during the same period from various places in the country like Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
The death count is most likely to increase as some tigers are missing and their fate unknown, this include two tigresses those are missing from Chandrapur district.
According to various forest departments in the country, 17 tigers found dead in various protected areas were killed by other tigers over territory fight. This include one each in Corbett tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand, Dudhwa Tiger Reserve in Uttar Pradesh, Mysore in Karnataka, four cubs and two adult tigers were found dead in Kanha Tiger Reserve, seven tigers were found dead in Kaziranga Tiger Reserve in Assam, while one tiger died during tranquilisation in the Sunderbans in December 2008. Three tiger cubs were recently rescued near Junona in Chandrapur district, which are currently at Maharajbag Zoo in Nagpur along with a cub rescued from forest near Chandrapur.
“The rescued cubs should also be treated as loss since they will never return to the wild. However, the records are sufficient enough to claim that forests have lost 21 tigers,” said Nitin Desai, central India director of WPSI.
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