UDHAGAMANDALAM: Forest officials in the Nilgiris on Wednesday seized a 'fresh' tiger skin from a four-member gang in the Sigur forest area near Anaikatty, suggesting a revival in poaching of the big cat in the Western Ghats.
Investigations are on to find out how the gang came into possession of the skin. Officials said a tip-off enabled them to move in before the skin was sold and arrest the four suspects, including two tribals. Interrogation revealed the involvement of three others, who were also arrested.
District forest officer (north) K Soundarapandian, investigating the seizure along with Mudumalai Tiger Reserve field director Rajiv K Srivasatava, said five of the seven suspects were remanded in custody after being charged under the Wildlife (Protection) Act. All were daily wage labourers from Gudalur taluk.
"An informer who works in surveillance alerted us," Srivastava told TOI. "It is a 'fresh' one and must be about two to three weeks old," he added. "The tiger must have been around four years old."
Tiger poaching in the region was last reported in 2007. A recent census estimated tigers in TN at 76, with a lower limit of 56 and upper limit of 95. Mudumalai reserve has the largest number.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Kaziranga, best for tigers
Corbett National Park may have to give up its status as the best home for tigers in India. A non-governmental organisation, Aranyak, has found that the Kaziranga National Park in Assam has 32 tigers for every 100 sq km, as compared to Corbett, which has 20 for the same area.
Tiger density in other reserves hovers between 8 and 12.
The assessment was based on monitoring of tigers with the camera trap technology used by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) for conducting nation-wide tiger census.
"If we go by their assessment, Kaziranga should have 100-120 tigers," said an official of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). Kaziranga, which is also known for its rhinos and elephants, had about 30 tigers in 1972, and 86 in 2007, as per the last tiger census conducted in India.
NCTA officials, however, said the real picture of the tiger population in Kaziranga would emerge only in a couple of months when the tiger census by WII is finalised.
"We expect to complete the first assessment by August," said Qamar Qureshi, a WII scientist, also part of the census.
Aranyak's assessment prompted Environment and Forest Minister Jairam Ramesh to say tiger density in Kaziranga is higher than in Corbett, which he said was under stress because of increased tourism activity.
"Initial indications on tiger census are encouraging. But I cannot say whether the tiger population would be more than 1,400 as estimated in 2007," Ramesh said.
In the first phase of tiger census completed in south India and parts of north India, WII scientists have spotted some tigers in naxal-affected tiger reserves. Scientists entered naxal-affected Indravati Tiger Reserve in Chattisgarh, Palamu Tiger Reserve in Jharkhand and Simlipal in Orissa and got tiger excreta samples.
"Some tigers have also been sighted in Indravati and Palamu," Ramesh said. Ramesh had earlier called these areas the worst tiger homes in India.
New software to track tigers
The Central government is introducing a new software to make tiger monitoring more accurate, even as the first phase of India's comprehensive tiger census showed some “encouraging trends”.
Launching the M-Stripes system – which involves GPS for field guards and software monitoring — on Wednesday, Union Minister of State for Environment and Forests said that the technology would help increase the transparency of forest surveillance.
“We know that a lot of the information today is doctored and unreliable. People claim that they have gone on patrol, but actually they are just sitting in their offices and generating data,” said Mr. Ramesh. “This system will put an end to that.”
In the past, officials had continued to report tiger sightings at the Sariska and Panna reserves, inflating official figures long after the big cats had vanished from those areas.
The government hopes the current ongoing census will be more accurate, and Mr. Ramesh said that some encouraging trends had been seen in the first phase, which covered around 3.5 lakh sq km of forests, including non-tiger reserve areas, at the beat level.
Tigers were spotted in regions that had been written off earlier, including Buxa, Nagarjuna Sagar and Indravati.
A high tiger density was also reported in the Kaziranga reserve.
http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article397593.ece
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