DNA (Jaipur), 13 March, 2010
Yet again, Ranthambhore is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Two sub-adult tigers were found dead last Sunday and the forest authorities accepted that the big cats died due to poisoning. This was the latest in a series of mishaps that have cost Ranthambhore at least seven tigers – adults, sub-adults and cubs – in the last three years.
Last Sunday, as the news spread, spin doctors within and outside the forest department quickly swung into action. First, they told the media that Ranthambhore’s tiger population had reached the saturation mark and that the surplus tigers would always be at risk when they moved out. They also claimed that the only way to avoid such tragedies would be to shift these tigers to Sariska and blamed the Centre for putting the tiger translocation process on hold. Next, they pointed fingers at a few local hoteliers who did not want tigers to be moved to Sariska as fewer tigers in Ranthmbhore would have hurt their business interests.
To be fair, a lot has changed for the good in Ranthambhore over the past five years. The forest department had its plate full in 2005 when the Central Bureau of Investigation confirmed the local extinction of tigers in Sariska. A few months later, poachers arrested by Rajasthan police admitted to killing more than 20 tigers in Ranthambhore. In sheer embarrassment, the state government swiftly transferred Ranthambhore’s two top forest officials.
The tiger population has bounced back in Ranthambhore since 2005 when the reserve recorded just 26 tigers. Today, the number stands above 40. But Ranthambhore tiger reserve is spread over 1300 sq km – too large an area to become crowded with 40 tigers. Corbett National Park, for example, has more than 150 tigers in as much area. So how did the state forest bosses claim that Ranthambhore was over-populated? Obviously, by Ranthambhore, they meant Ranthambhore national park which is just a small part of the Ranthambhore tiger reserve.
Most of Ranthambhore’s tigers are inside the prey-rich, well-protected 300 sq km national park area. The rest of the tiger reserve – about 1000 sq km of Sawai Man Singh sanctuary, Kela Devi sanctuary and reserve forests – is not protected at all and, therefore, has no natural prey left. Tigers have little option here but to feed on cattle and, in turn, invite retribution.
When the forest authorities say that tigers are moving out of Ranthambhore to die, tigers are only moving from one part of the reserve to another. The latest poisoning deaths were reported from Taldakhet, a small village in Keladevi sanctuary, hardly a kilometre from the national park boundary, very much inside the tiger reserve. It is indeed shocking how a 1000 sq km tiger forest – about three-fourth of Ranthambhore tiger reserve -- has been surrendered to grazing and encroachment and accepted by the forest authorities as death zones.
About 300 sq km of the national park area may get crowded with 40 tigers but the remaining 1000 sq km of the tiger reserve should ideally be able to house thrice that number. After the Sariska lesson, authorities should have tried to restore the entire reserve as prime tiger habitat. Next, they should have gone ahead to reclaim the corridors to Kuno in Madhya Pradesh to Ramgarh Bisdhari sanctuary near Bundi for natural dispersal of tigers. Unfortunately, they have just given up on these areas and are now seeking to save tigers by airlifting them to Sariska.
And therein lies another example of conservation myopia. The tiger translocation programme has been put on hold in Rajasthan after three siblings were arbitrarily picked up from Ranthambhore to repopulate Sariska. Recently, the Centre ordered DNA tests to ascertain the breeding compatibility of Ranthambhore tigers before translocating them.
This embargo has further irked the state forest bosses who were already at loggerheads with the Centre in 2008 when National Tiger Conservation Authority made it mandatory to pick up only floating sub-adults for translocation and prohibited shifting the resident population. Tigers seek out individual territories by the time they are three and a settled tiger, if moved, only tries to return. Many of you may recall the Pench tiger that started "homing" soon after being shifted to Panna. A floater, on the other hand, is typically a young tiger in transit looking for territory and hence, is more likely to adjust to a new location.
The catch is that identifying and tracking a floater takes much longer than arbitrarily picking up a resident tiger. On top of that, the order for DNA tests has only made state forest bosses more impatient. Good science is a must for the success of the world’s first wild tiger repopulation drive in Sariska. But good science is often laborious and time-consuming. So many in Jaipur seem keen to exploit Ranthambhore’s fatalities to fast track airlifting of tigers to Sariska. They have even offered an imaginative twist to this Centre-state tussle by involving “a section of Ranthambhore’s hoteliers”.
Indeed, the Ranthambhore tourism lobby may have the clout to engage conservationists who can influence the policies of the Union government but the hoteliers have little reason for trying to plot such an ambitious conspiracy. Even if the Centre decides not to wait for the DNA test results and allows the state to resume shifting tigers to Sariska, the 2008 directives necessitate that only floaters be picked up. Ranthambhore’s tourism zone is inside the national park area occupied by resident tigers while floaters typically move in peripheral forests. How can removal of tigers from non-tourism areas affect the chances of tiger sighting and tourism in Ranthambhore?
It is time to get real. The forest authorities need to focus on hard ground management instead of taking short cuts. For starters, they could set a deadline for reclaiming the entire Ranthambhore reserve area for the tiger. If protected, Ranthambhore’s 1000 sq km death zone will make for a bigger tiger habitat than all of Sariska (681 sq km). Guess what, tigers do not need airlifting if they can walk free, and safe.
Author is an independent journalist and filmmaker
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