IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Karanth, K.U. | |
| Tigers Forever | |
| 2007 Seminar (577): 15-20 | |
Perhaps no other wild animal has influenced Asia's cultures as deeply as the tiger. Efforts to save tigers by establishing special 'game preserves' go back fifty years or more, and focused modern conservation efforts over a quarter century. Although early hunter-naturalists tried to understand tigers, modern scientific studies were initiated by biologist George Schaller of the Wildlife Conservation Society only in the early 1960s,1 in whose footsteps others followed. Therefore, it is not illogical to expect, as has been the case in other applied sciences - for example, agriculture, medicine or communication - advancing scientific knowledge should have shaped efforts to save the big cat. Surprisingly, this has rarely been the case with Indian wildlife conservation. This curious dichotomy between 'knowledge' and 'passion' or between 'reason' and 'action', has undermined efforts at tiger recovery. As a result, while famines, foodimports and dysfunctional telephones that characterized the 1960s have been largely conquered through application of knowledge-based solutions, tigers continue to be under grave threat. Recent estimates suggest the tiger's historical range in Asia has shrunk by about 93%. Tigers now occur only in 13 countries, down from about 30 historically. There appears to be 1.1 million square kilometres of potential tiger habitat left in the world that holds about 76 discrete tiger populations. Although there are over 20,000 tigers behind bars in captivity, global wild tiger population is precariously low, guesses of various sorts placing it at 3000-7000 individuals. Despite substantial expenditure of passion, energy and money over three decades, our efforts to save wild tigers for posterity appear to be faltering. |
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