India is facing a serious 'problem of plenty'. Rising tiger population in many parts of the country is creating conflict zones. And the tiger- human clashes are going up, alarmingly in many landscapes. The Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change (MoEFCC) needs to take initiatives to control the situation. Fifty years after the project tiger as India moves on from dwindling tiger population to surplus numbers of the big cats, the nation needs an active tiger population management plan. As MoEFC&C yet to become proactive, a team of tiger catchers continue to carry out search operations for the past over five months to capture a tigress with four cubs. Thge team members are scanning Tadoba Andhari Tiger Landscape in Vidarbha region of Maharashtra, grappling with the issue of over population of 200 tigers. As many as 53 people lost their lives in Chandrapur in 2022 in tiger attacks while 14 tigers have also died from January 2022 to January this year. This
A midst the cacophony of save tiger campaigns- many of them starts and ends after brief photo sessions on Global Tiger Day -it appears much spoken but little is done to save the stripes. Rather, the laws are being simplified and the governments- both at the centre as well as in the states- look at the other way as the sanctity of green spaces is violated. If people are so much concerned over saving the tiger - the top predator at the apex of the food chainand an umbrella species whose conservation indirectly protects other wildlife and in turn the whole forest and environment- we should better start practicing what we preach. This is actually necessary for our policy makers. And in this case, the sooner is going to be better. Or else, we may have to regret later. Shrinking Forests, Clogged Corridors Despite all the education and advocacy in wildlife conservation, the habitat of the big cat continues to decline. Less than 4,000 tigers remain in the wild, down from 100,000 a h