Tehelka, 31 March, 2012
AN EXACT headcount of tigers is not necessary to save the animal. Tigers do just fine till there are just a few left in a forest. So should we fuss over feel-good numbers propped up every now and then for a figure-happy media? Fuss we must, because the first casualty of such manipulation is the early warning system.
Sariska and Panna did not lose their tigers overnight. The managements were happily counting many tigers per tiger till the last ones were killed in a poaching spree that continued for years. Honest monitoring could have easily detected the population slide in both cases, leading to a timely crackdown on the mafia.
History cannot be undone. But seven years after the Sariska lesson, the Centre’s much-vaunted initiative of continuous monitoring of tiger reserves has again left it to the ability, whims and integrity of the states to report real-time data that will determine the management response on the ground. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is entirely funding this exercise but has set no benchmark for accountability.
Ironically, Project Tiger (now NTCA) boss Dr Rajesh Gopal had termed the 2005 Sariska debacle an opportunity for reforms. Already, in 2002, Project Tiger and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) had begun replacing the human error-prone pugmark census method with a scientific estimation protocol. In 2005, the initiative gathered steam. In a three-phase programme, the Centre institutionalised camera-trapping and has since spent nearly Rs 25 crore to conduct two quadrennial all-India censuses. While in 2006, the tiger numbers were rationalised from the pugmark based count of 3,500 to 1,411, the 2010 report claimed a jump to 1,706.
But, independent experts were already raising a few pertinent points. The future of the species depends on good breeding populations and there are few left in India. While the mega quadrennial census spread out resources over 3 lakh sq km, key tiger areas spanned not more than 25,000 sq km. Besides, tiger mortality and birth rate are very high and poaching anyway causes a rapid fall in numbers. So a lot can happen to a tiger population in the long window between two quadrennial censuses.
The NTCA agreed and decided to move on to Phase IV of its monitoring programme. In a series of meetings hosted by the government during 2009-11, experts decided that the NTCA would ensure rigorous scanning of the high tiger density areas to generate real-time data while the WII would continue with its all-India exercise every four years. In November 2011, Phase IV monitoring was launched in all tiger reserves (except Sunderbans and Buxa) and the NTCA has since distributed Rs 5 crore among the states. The annual exercise will eventually cost Rs 30 lakh per 1,000 sq km.
So how was Phase IV supposed to be different?
During the 2010 all-India census, camera trapping was done in small forest patches adding up to roughly 10,000 sq km and this data was extrapolated, rather dubiously, to obtain tiger numbers for the entire 85,000 sq km of India’s tiger forests. Moreover, the cameras were used for different durations (usually too long) in different field locations.
Big cats move across long ranges and sampling several small patches within a landscape results in the same tigers getting clicked in different sampling areas. Keeping the cameras on for too long records many tigers that either die during the estimation process or are transient animals just passing through the sampling area. Naturally, such tigers, unlike the surviving resident tigers, are not captured repeatedly by the camera.
Since the estimation relies on the ratio of the instances of recapture of the tigers that have been already captured, this leads to overestimation. Moreover, while counting unique tigers in camera trap photos, too many shots often add to the numbers, particularly if the frames show different parts of the body.
To fix such holes, the minutes of the meetings mentioned above defined Phase IV as an intensive but time-bound exercise to be conducted by the state Forest Departments “in collaboration with outside experts/organisations”.
The entire area (in multiples of 400 sq km) of each reserve having a good tiger population was to be scanned by deploying a minimum of 25 camera traps per 100 sq km for 40-60 days. During the same time, distance sampling of prey base would be conducted by walking 300 km along 30 randomly selected linear forest tracts and counting animals encountered on both sides. Thus, within two months, the real time status of a tiger and its prey population would have been assessed in a scientifically robust and transparent manner.
Instead, the NTCA encumbered its Phase IV guidelines, issued in November 2011, with all the paraphernalia of its earlier phases, including the pugmark study, and left it to the states to decide on involving outsiders. Few states have opened their doors to external expertise since. Instead, they have asked their wildlife wings to go ahead with what little manpower they have, never mind if they have the technical rigour or simply the time for what has now become an arduous, multi-pronged exercise. Past experience shows that a liability on paper is reduced to a farce on the field.
“It is frustrating that the authorities decide something in consultation with the experts and then go on and do something conveniently different. This is one of the reasons for which I resigned from the NTCA in 2009,” says conservationist Valmik Thapar. Many share his anger and maintain that the Centre is going back on its promise of a scientific count.
“The purpose of the Phase IV is lost in this combination of so many exercises that will both add to and justify the confusion. Many reserves simply don’t have the capacity. Left to themselves, forest guards randomly fill in data. Who will ensure that the camera traps are deployed properly and not for longer than the prescribed periods,” asks a young field biologist involved in tiger monitoring.
NTCA DEPUTY director SP Yadav says a Central committee will soon be set up to monitor the Phase IV implementation. Few buy it, though. “Snap audits are fine but a few field visits by a Central committee can’t ensure that the science is not being compromised in the field across 17 states,” says an NTCA member who is likely to be named to the soon-to-be-formed panel.
Others hint at corruption. For years now, tiger reserves have been procuring cameras worth crores. “We know there are always opportunities in purchase. That may be one of the reasons for this resistance to research institutes that bring their cameras and do a thorough job,” says a member of the National Board for Wildlife.
Yadav, however, says that the NTCA believes in building capacity at the government level and that the tiger reserves will utilise their cameras for round-the-year monitoring.
That should be useful, unless the year-round availability of cameras results in Phase IV data collection over a period longer than the prescribed 40-60 days. Anyway, the NTCA has asked the states merely for the maximum possible photos of individual tigers, conceding that few reserves have the capacity to carry out advanced scientific assessment.
But, asks former Project Tiger director PK Sen, will involving external agencies alone guarantee transparency? Organisations such as WCS-India, WWF India and Aaranyak are helping a few states monitor tigers in some areas. But states rarely tolerate outsiders unable to defend the celebratory official numbers.
Perhaps the only way out is to commission independent audits with longer mandates of, say, 5-10 years so that professional agencies can continue scientific monitoring without having to oblige the governments and break the annual cycle of number games for good. Till then, the tiger boom will continue and jolts like Sariska will remain very much a possibility.
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