95 tiger deaths recorded in 2018; 41 outside reserves

New Delhi, Dec 19: India lost 95 tigers this year, says official website of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). Of this, 41 cases of tiger deaths outside tiger reserves have been reported.

As per statistics on tigernet.nic.in, 14 of them occurred in Maharashtra, which accounted for over 34% of all deaths outside tiger reserves in the country. A total of 19 tiger deaths were recorded in Maharashtra in 2018, so deaths outside tiger reserves comprise more than 70% of all tiger deaths in the State.

Reasons for the death of India's national animal have ranged from electrocution, poaching, poisoning, infighting, natural deaths, human-tiger conflict to rail/road accidents.

Ninety-eight tiger bodies were recovered in 2017 while 17 were presumed dead on the basis of body parts seized. In 2016, the tiger mortality figure was 122, which was over 50% more than that in the previous year when the total tiger deaths were 80.

To check the dwindling population of tigers, the Indian government launched Project Tiger in 1973. India now has 50 tiger reserves that cover 2.12% of the country's total geographical area.

According to the tiger census of 2014, India was home to 2,226 tigers, or about 60% of the world's wild tiger population of about 3,890. Pressure on their habitat and poaching had seen their population decline to a low of 1,411 in 2006.

Tiger conservation has been high on the Indian government's agenda. India and its neighbours Nepal, Bhutan and Bangladesh recently decided to conduct a joint census of their tiger population.

Even though the tiger conservation efforts have been trying the level best to protect the endangered species but what the RTI has reported is surely going to make us stunned. Yes, RTI in response to the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau reveals that 384 tigers have been killed in the past 10 years in almost every 3 months.