41 dead tigers in 7 months: Get a clue, it's a fraction

The Indian Express, 12 August, 2015

Official data reveal India lost 41 tigers in seven months this year. It made headlines. For the wrong reasons.
First, there is nothing unusual about the figure. Consider the annual death count since 2009: 61 (2014), 76 (2013), 89 (2012), 56 (2011), 53 (2010) and 66 (2009). Go back a decade and you will find 411 tiger deaths recorded between 2001 and 2005. That is about 80 deaths a year. If anything, the death-population ratio is improving on official records.
Second, many more tigers are dying in the wild without getting into official records. A tiger carcass rots very quickly and usually decomposes beyond recognition before a forest guard chances upon one. On the other hand, when poachers strike, they don’t leave much of the animal behind — contrary to popular belief, tiger bone is now costlier than its pelt.
Given that we have more than 2,000 tigers, it is surprising that 41 deaths in seven months is being bandied about as high mortality. A tiger’s average life expectancy in the wild is about 12 years. Eight years ago, India counted 1411 tigers. Assuming an even age distribution in that population, two-thirds of 1411 tigers — aged four and above — must have died in the last eight years. Without even factoring in the high infant mortality, this gives us a ballpark figure of 960 deaths or an average of at least 120 deaths annually.
Third, only a fraction of the deaths on record are attributed to poaching or retaliatory killings by aggrieved farmers and herdsmen. Since 2014, merely 14 cases of seizure of tiger body parts have been recorded. But that is no reason to conclude that the threat of poaching is diminishing. We simply don’t have enough data to assess the ground situation. 
Most tiger reserve managers are systemically trained to avoid the P-word and find all sorts of bizarre reasons — from snakebite to heart failure — to explain unnatural tiger deaths. So much so that a former Project Tiger boss once wondered if suicide would soon figure on that list.
Carcasses made untraceable by nature and poaching made invisible by officials are the real stories behind these numbers.