Tigers are fighting a losing battle

Lalit Shastri

Bhopal: During 2017, 98 cases of tiger mortality and 17 cases of tiger body parts seizure were reported from different parts of India.

The maiximum mortality – 26 tigers – was reported from BJP ruled Madhya Pradesh, the central Indian State that boasts of the cental Indian highlands and was till a few years ago known as the Tiger State. What is most distrubing is that  is most disturbing is that 10 of these tigers have died in Tiger Reserves or in their close vicinity.

This year, one tiger mortality has been reported – that too from Madhya Pradesh. On January 3, 2018, Forest department has found a decomposed body of an adult tiger in Balaghat district.

It’s more than just sad the way tigers are perishing or getting killed….one is horrified by the fact that most of those who can act have abdicated their responsibility….Instead they are busy counting their gains and falling to greater depths on being doled out lavish sinecures and positions that matter. By paying lip service to combat Wildlife crime and by going all out to allow reckless cattle grazing, logging, minor forest produce collection, mining and encroachment of forest land, they are thriving and at the same driving the last nail in the coffin of this majestic specie. Irony is that those who have carved a name for themselves as Apostles of Conservation have became larger than life and larger than the tiger itself. While the biotic pyramid, with the tiger that was supposed to sit comfortably at its peak, crumbles, the Lord’s of democracy and their minions or the crony capitalists continue to bask in the glory of their ill-gotten fame. This, while the voiceless tiger clings to the precipice of its once rich habitat for survival.

Figures courtesy: The Official Database of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (A Statutory Body under the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India)