Sabyasachi Ji,

Close on the heels of the gruesome killing at Tadoba a few weeks back, the news from BRT is yet another heart breaking one indeed.

According to figures released by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) an estimated 48 tigers have died in the first six months of 2012 alone compared to 56 tiger deaths reported in the whole of 2010 and 52 in 2011. While the NTCA confirmed that 19 of these deaths are clear-cut cases of poaching, wildlife experts claim poaching deaths could be much higher. Just goes to show the sorry state of affairs in India.

Apparently, it seems that our Government are under the illusion that Tiger population might thrive just by declaring a NP/WLS as a Tiger Reserve. While nothing is being done to curb illicit trade of wildlife products, our Government has also failed to understand the need to win over people residing in villages around these reserves.

Granting a princely compensation of a few hundred Rupees for loss of livestock to these villagers does not suffice. Refer Aditya Singh's blog, there has also been an gruesome instance a while back when a few villagers baited 2 sub-adult tigers with a poisoned goat carcass and killed them. It was their way of getting back at the siblings for having eaten 3 of their Goats !! It isn't hard to imagine why a financial loss of Rs.2,000 meant more to the villagers than 2 Tigers !

Providing livelihood (and a pie of tiger tourism) to the villagers, providing better access to basic amenities, creating employment opportunities, providing education to their children, creating awareness on ill-effects of grazing in core/buffer areas, taking concrete steps to avoid man-animal conflicts, engaging the villagers in intelligence gathering & anti-poaching activities remain core issues which need to be addressed on a war-footing.

Who bells the cat remains a conundrum.