The agile hunter with a swagger could well be on its way towards being a cornered quarry, meant to be hunted down mercilessly. The Royal Bengal tiger, which for Indian big cat specialist K. Ullhas Karanth is "always a dream", is caught in a bitter dispute of numbers which may be cause enough for it to turn into a nightmare, at least for the powers that be here in India and across the border in Bangladesh.
Wildlife officials, independent big cat specialists and ngos concerned with wildlife on both sides of the border are asking some uncomfortable questions, the most important being: is the royal cat population dwindling? Official population figures, however, look decently healthy and even show a rise in Sundarbans, the only Indian tiger reserve in a mangrove ecosystem. So, has there really been a sharp depredation of prey and degradation of forests in the tigers habitat? (There is little official study at all). Consider the sobering fact that Sundarbans-the worlds largest estuarine delta-is home to majority of the 5,000-odd tigers (the Royal Bengal variety included) remaining in the world. This is a 95 per cent decline from one lakh tigers at the turn of the century.
In West Bengal, a much-hyped pug mark census, which costs more than Rs 1.5 lakh every time it is conducted, has been recording the cats population for the past few years. The last census two years ago threw up a figure of 298 Royal Bengal tigers-263 in the exclusive Sundarbans tiger reserve area and 35 outside it. In the Sundarbans tiger reserve area, the Royal Bengal population, according to the last census, had risen by 22 cats from 241 tigers recorded during the 1993 census. Across the border, in the contiguous Sundarbans in Bangladesh, where the tiger is the national animal just like in India, wildlife officials report anything between 300 to 460 tigers. "We dont know the actual figures," confesses Mohammed Monirul Hasan Khan, International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) member from Bangladesh. If these figures are accurate, then the Sundarbans tiger population, at more than 600 animals, is the largest single in the world.
These facts, however, are not stamped with certitude. In Indias best-managed national parks, where habitat is relatively secure and food aplenty, a tiger is found every 10 to 12 sq km. The national average density of tiger population has been found to be one animal for every 25 to 30 sq km of forest land. In comparison, the Sundarbans numbers translate to a tiger for every three sq km.
"The population figures in Sundarbans appear to be on the higher side," says P.K. Sen, director of the Delhi-based Project Tiger-the 26-year-old national initiative to save the big cat. Independent wildlife expert Valmik Thapar puts the number of Royal Bengal tigers in Indias Sundarbans at around 175.
So, is the Royal Bengal tiger being poached? If yes, what is the rate? Here too the picture is utterly confusing. According to statistics available with the West Bengal wildlife department, a total of 12 cats have been killed by poachers between November 1990 and June 1999. Another 11 Royal Bengal tiger skins were seized by the wildlife department and the police during the same period. Pradip Shukla, field director, Sundarbans Tiger Reserve, says that of the 110 tigers that strayed from their habitat in Sundarbans in the past 10 years, only nine were poisoned and killed by villagers. Says he: "Poaching of the tiger is not a serious threat in Sundarbans. We have never lost more than two tigers in a single year."
Wrong," says Belinda Wright of the Delhi-based Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), which tracks animal trafficking, and is fighting some 87 cases related to tiger poaching across the country. WPSI has recorded the seizure of five tiger skins in Calcutta this year alone. In the Bangladesh part of the mangrove forests, 86 tigers have been poached since 1959, and in the past year itself six tigers were killed. In fact, these official figures ring hollow with most big cat specialists. Says Wright: "The tiger is not safe in the Sundarbans." The most damning statement, however, comes from within the establishment itself. Says Arin Ghosh, West Bengals outspoken chief wildlife warden: "Poaching figures have been deliberately held back. The rising evidence in form of skin seizures indicates that there is more poaching than what figures tell us. Poaching is the single biggest threat to the Royal Bengal tiger."
Hunting of both the predator and its prey, habitat loss and fragmentation have probably resulted in the decline and endangerment of the Royal Bengal tiger. Though no prey density survey has been carried out in the Sundarbans unlike some other national parks, Karanth suspects that "the prey density is fairly low". In the Indian part of the Sundarbans the tiger feeds on wild boar, cheetal, monkeys, deer and occasionally on fish and crabs. The 3.7 million people who live in half of the 102 islands dotting the delta are desperately poor and depend on the thick reserve for forest resources to keep their home fires burning. There are reports of local poachers armed with country-made guns killing deer indiscriminately-the last deer census which found some 30,000 deer in Sundarbans was conducted 10 years ago. In Bangladesh, some four lakh people work in the Sundarbans area. Wild buffalo and swamp deer, the major prey for the tiger, have gone extinct. Poaching is rampant, tourists openly flout laws to play beach volleyball in the reserve forest area.
Rising apiculture and shrimp farming also brings the tiger in close contact and conflict with humans. According to official records, over 650 people, mostly fishermen and honey collectors, have been killed by Royal Bengal tigers in India and Bangladesh since 1984. The official death toll in Bangladesh, says IUCNs Khan, is an alarming "three to four times more" since corrupt forest guards dont record deaths who enter the area illegally to fish. In the West Bengal Sundarbans-where the tiger has killed 282 and mauled another 55 people since 1987-Shukla says another 140-odd people "who entered illegally" without boat-plying or timber-felling licenses "may have been killed by the tiger and gone unreported". Add to this the habitat shrinkage-vegetation in West Bengals South 24 Parganas district where Sundarbans is located is stagnating at 21 per cent of the total area-and you have a situation where the cat is fighting a war for survival.
The situation is being accentuated by the callousness of the West Bengal government. Sixty-three of the 263 sanctioned posts for critical wildlife staff entrusted with the upkeep of the Sundarbans tiger reserve lie vacant and infrastructure is primitive-outdated and ill-maintained wireless sets and rickety improvised motor boats and slow patrolling launches. Besides, a proposal for two companies of the State Armed Police (sap) to patrol the area has been hanging fire for ages. And adding to all this is a plan to cut an international steamer channel route through the waterways of Sundarbans. "This is sheer habitat destruction and alteration," seethes Bittu Sahgal, editor of Sanctuary magazine. "The nocturnal ecology of the Sundarbans keeps the tiger alive. Now they want to destroy it too."
But some faltering steps are being taken. An international seminar on the tiger, organised by the Calcutta-based Nature Environment and Wildlife Society (news) and the state forest department last week, seems to have goaded the government into some action. Low-flying aerial surveys to check prey base and a proper ground "truthing" check of the satellite data on forest cover has been planned. A total of 33 camera traps have already been set up in the forests to take pictures to get closer to the truth.
Clearly, that could be mans last chance to save the most elegant cat of all.
