Important pointers from the Report (Summary with additional Important details)
- India now has as many as 2,967 tigers in the wild,with more than half of them in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka, according to the latest tiger estimation report for 2018.
- The range for the total tiger population in the wild is 2,603-3,346.
The population has increased by nearly 33% since the last census in 2014 when the total estimate was 2,226.
- MP had the highest rise of 218 tigers, reaching an estimated 526, followed by Karnataka with 524.
- Large decline in Chhattisgarh and Odisha.
- No tigers were found in Buxa (West Bengal), Dampa (Mizoram) and Palamau (Jharkhand) tiger reserves .
- 24% mortality among tigers is due to poaching. Growing conflict with humans is another concern.
- In 2010, at the Tiger Summit of St. Petersburg, India along with 12 other tiger range countries had committed to doubling the population of tigers in their respective countries by 2022.
- India with 50 tiger reserves in 18 states has over 80% of the global tiger population which stands at 3,159.
- The Project Tiger, that was initiated in 1973 with nine tiger reserves has now grown to cover 50 tiger reserves covering about 2.21% of India’s geographical area.
Project Tiger is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Government of India which was launched on the 1st of April, 1973 for in-situ conservation of wild tigers in designated tiger reserves.
10. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in collaboration with the State Forest Departments, Conservation NGO’s and coordinated by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), conducts a National assessment for the “Status of Tigers, Co-predators, Prey and their Habitat” every four years since 2006.
The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is a statutory body of the Ministry, with an overarching supervisory / coordination role, performing functions as provided in the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
Environment Minister is the Chairman of the NTCA.
11. The Tiger Task Force appointed by the Prime Minister of India in 2005 mandated a four yearly monitoring of tiger populations across India based on the methodology developed by the Wildlife Institute of India.
12. Methodology-
The fourth cycle of the assessment was undertaken in 2018 and 2019 using the best available science, technology and analytical tools.
In this cycle, recording of primary field data digitally through mobile phone application like M-STrIPES (Monitoring System for tigers – intensive protection and ecological status),(asked in UPSC Prelims 2017) that uses GPS to geotag photo-evidences, and survey information made this exercise more accurate, with smaller margins of human error.
Further, it involved the development of innovative technology like automated segregation of camera trap photographs to species using artificial intelligence and neural network models (software CaTRAT – Camera Trap data Repository and Analysis Tool).
Camera trap based Capture-Mark-Recapture: Camera trap surveys are a well-established methodology for abundance/density estimation of carnivores. Development of spatial capture-recapture methods have led to greater clarity in density estimation by integrating the spatial location information of animal photo-captures.
Abundance estimation through Spatially Explicit Capture Recapture (SECR) -We used likelihood based SECR to estimate tiger and leopard abundance from camera trap data.
Genetic sampling – At sites where it was not possible to undertake camera trapping due to very low tiger numbers or unfavourable law and order conditions, scat samples of carnivores were collected to estimate minimum number of tigers through genetic analysis.
(Remember the terms associated with Methodology, details not needed)
13. Tiger occupied states in India- 20
14. The extensive exercise is considered to be the world’s largest wildlife survey.
