Reduced Tiger Mortality in 3 Years

• 03 Jan 2020

Why in News

According to the Ministry of Forest Environment and Climate Change (MoEFCC), the number of tiger deaths in 2019 has decreased for the first time in three years.

• The number of tiger deaths recorded in previous years are 122 (2016), 115 (2017), 100 (2018) and 95 (2019).
• Decreasing tiger mortality has emerged parallelly with the increasing numbers of tigers in the country.
  
  • The tiger census report (2019), reported an increase in the number of tigers compared to 2014.

Key Points

• Numerics:
  
  • For 2019, 84 cases of tiger deaths and 11 cases of seizures (a tiger is presumed dead on the basis of body parts seized by authorities) are reported in the country.
  • Madhya Pradesh, which has the highest number of tigers in the country (526, as per the last census), has recorded the highest number of tiger deaths (31) followed by Maharashtra (18), Karnataka (12) and Uttarakhand (10).
  • Deaths were also recorded from non-tiger bearing states like Gujarat, where a tiger had strayed into the State and died.
• Reason:
  
  • Poaching is the main reason for tiger deaths in the country followed by other natural reasons.
  • The data on tiger mortality also confirms 22 cases of poaching in the country.
• Location:
  
  • Tigers are most vulnerable when they are outside reserves as they are not under surveillance.
  • Almost over 70% of cases of poaching have been reported outside tiger reserves.
• Use of Technology:
  
  • The reduced tiger mortalities are due to usage of technology for surveillance, good management of tiger reserves and a lot of awareness and education programmes on tiger conservation.
    
    • M-STrIPES (Monitoring System for Tigers-Intensive Protection & Ecological Status) patrolling app is deployed and used in every tiger reserve.

Source: TH