'As Maharashtra’s tiger population grows, territorial conflicts, human-wildlife interactions, and habitat pressures will only intensify. We must rethink our approach to conservation beyond just increasing numbers.'
Maharashtra lost nearly one tiger every two days between December 30, 2024 and January 22, 2025, sparking concern among wildlife conservationists over the reasons behind the deaths of 12 tigers within a span of a little over three weeks.
While Maharashtra Forest Minister Ganesh Naik revealed that five of these tigers lost their lives due to injuries resulting from illnesses and territorial conflicts, four lost their lives due to electrocution from live wires installed for other wild animals, and three died due to poaching, the deaths of 12 tigers raise many questions over man-animal conflict, the success of Project Tiger, tiger habitats across various reserves in Maharashtra and measures that need to be taken to prevent such loss.
Kedar Gore, director of The Corbett Foundation that specialises in implementing wildlife conservation programmes across many wilderness landscapes of India, in an interview to Prasanna D Zore/Rediff.com discusses the challenges posed, ironically, by the success of Project Tiger, the reasons behind the deaths of tigers inside and outside the forests, the measures needed to reduce man-animal conflicts, the reason why Maharashtra has succeeded in increasing its tiger population manifold and what more needs to be done to save the national animal.
“We need to evolve our perspective beyond merely increasing numbers without anticipating the conflict challenges these increased tiger numbers would pose in the next two decades,” says Kedar, who has over 25 years of experience in nature conservation, environmental education, human-wildlife coexistence and environment sustainability.
Recently, Forest Minister Ganesh Naik reported that 12 tigers have died across wildlife sanctuaries in Maharashtra, mostly in Vidarbha, within a span of less than 24 days. How are wildlife conservationists viewing these deaths?
It's deeply concerning to see so many tigers die in such a short span.
While some deaths can be attributed to natural causes, particularly territorial fights among tigers, we've confirmed at least three cases of poaching, as reported by the minister.
Deaths due to railway collision and road accidents are quite worrying too.
What's particularly troubling is that in several cases, as has been seen in the past few years, the causes remain unknown or suspicious.
There's a strong possibility that some deaths might be due to retaliatory measures by villagers, though proving such cases is incredibly challenging.
Each tiger death represents a significant loss to our conservation efforts, and the clustering of these deaths in such a short period raises serious questions about our ability to protect these magnificent creatures.
What's behind this sudden spike in tiger deaths?
Ironically, this situation is partly a consequence of our conservation success.
Maharashtra, especially in the Vidarbha region, and neighbouring Madhya Pradesh have done remarkably well in increasing their tiger populations. The Tadoba Tiger Reserve and adjacent Chandrapur Complex, comprising of Brahmapuri, Chandrapur and Central Chanda divisions, in particular, have witnessed an impressive growth in tiger numbers over the past decade.
The All India Tiger Estimation (AITE) of 2022 has recorded around 250 tigers spread over 11,171 sq km.
At the district level, Chandrapur district has the highest tiger population in the world; while Brahmapuri forest division has seen an increase in the tiger population by 1.5 times from AITE 2018 estimates. This success isn't accidental -- Tadoba provides excellent protection measures, high-quality habitat, and consistent water availability, all of which are crucial for tiger survival.
However, this success brings its own challenges. Tigers are highly territorial animals, and each reserve has a natural carrying capacity -- a limit to how many tigers it can sustain without triggering conflicts (among tigers for territorial superiority).
When the population exceeds this capacity, younger tigers must establish new territories, often leading to violent confrontations. This population pressure forces some tigers to move into adjacent forest divisions in Chandrapur district, areas that weren't traditionally managed as tiger habitats.
What happens when tigers venture beyond reserve boundaries?
This is where we encounter some of our most significant challenges.
Outside the protected reserves, the ecosystem is markedly different. These divisions are affected by encroachment and mining activities, which have led to the degradation of forest corridors. There's a notable scarcity of wild prey animals, but an abundance of livestock. Naturally, tigers begin preying on these easier targets, which inevitably leads to human-wildlife negative interactions.
The forest department's response to these incidents becomes crucial. If they can compensate villagers quickly and fairly for their livestock losses, it helps maintain community support for conservation efforts. However, when compensation is delayed or inadequate, we see a dangerous pattern emerge -- villagers might resort to retaliatory measures such as poisoning cattle carcasses or setting up illegal electrical wire traps to eliminate the tigers that have killed their livestock.
These conflict situations are particularly complex because they involve both wildlife protection and human livelihood concerns. We're essentially asking communities to bear the economic burden of conservation, which isn't sustainable without timely support systems in place.
The situation must be even more severe when tigers attack humans. How does this impact conservation efforts?
Human attacks represent the most critical escalation of the conflict, and they pose an enormous challenge to conservation efforts. It's fundamentally unrealistic to expect communities to support tiger conservation when they've lost family members to tiger attacks. The trauma and fear these incidents create can undo years of conservation work in a matter of days.
The forest department (of Maharashtra) faces significant challenges in these situations. They're bound by strict legal protocols and can only take action against tigers that have been definitively identified as deliberately attacking humans as against accidental mauling resulting in human deaths.
This may create a frustrating situation where communities feel their safety concerns aren't being adequately addressed and often leads to growing resentment and opposition to conservation efforts among local communities.
You mentioned illnesses affecting tigers. Could you elaborate on the health challenges these animals face?
One of the most significant health threats to tigers is the canine distemper virus (CDT), which can spread between different carnivore species. This becomes particularly problematic in areas where wildlife habitats interface with human settlements. The presence of large numbers of free ranging dogs in wilderness areas has posed newer conservation challenges. Dogs often act as transmission vectors for various diseases.
We've observed complex interactions where stray dogs, jackals and hyenas, feed on the same prey as tigers and leopards, creating multiple pathways for disease transmission.
In December 2024, three tigers and a leopard died due to avian influenza in Gorewada Rescue Centre, Nagpur. But the avian influenza impacting wild tiger populations is remote.
These health challenges are compounded by the stress tigers experience when living in close proximity to human settlements.
Stressed animals are more susceptible to diseases, creating a dangerous feedback loop. Additionally, when tigers move through human-dominated landscapes, they're exposed to agricultural run-off, industrial waste, and improper waste disposal, which introduce hazardous substances like pesticides and heavy metals that may compromise their health.
There's often discussion about human encroachment into tiger habitats. How do you view this issue?
The relationship between humans and tiger habitats is more complex than simple encroachment. Many villages in buffer zones have historical roots dating back decades or even centuries. These communities have traditional rights and livelihoods tied to these forests.
In some areas, proliferation of invasive species such as Lantana camara provide refuge areas for tigers close to human habitation thus resulting in frequent human-wildlife negative interactions.
Outside designated tiger reserves, there's intense pressure on natural prey populations, often due to bushmeat hunting and lack of palatable species. This creates a cascade effect where tigers are forced to seek alternatives, leading them into areas of human habitation.
Habitat degradation and fragmentation due to mining, linear infrastructure and anthropological dependency creates complex dynamics where historical human presence, modern development pressures, and wildlife needs all intersect.
What conservation measures has Maharashtra implemented to address these challenges?
The state has undertaken several significant initiatives as part of its tiger conservation programme. One major approach has been the relocation of villages from core zones (critical tiger habitat) tiger reserve. When these areas are vacated, the agricultural lands are systematically converted into meadows. These meadows that serve as grazing grounds for herbivores, increases the prey base for tigers.
While this approach has been successful in boosting tiger numbers, it comes with its own set of challenges. Village relocation is a sensitive process that requires careful handling of both human rights and conservation concerns. We need to ensure that relocated communities, post-rehabilitation, get support to rebuild their lives elsewhere with dignity and with access to basic needs of healthcare, education and employment.
Looking ahead to the 2026 census, Maharashtra recorded 444 tigers in 2022. What are your expectations for population growth?
Based on AITE of 2018 and 2022, we have seen an increase of almost 1.5 times increase (every four years) in tiger numbers in Maharashtra. Maharashtra has consistently ranked among the most successful tiger conservation states, alongside Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Karnataka, Assam, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
However, I believe we need to evolve our perspective beyond merely increasing numbers without anticipating the conflict challenges these increased tiger numbers would pose in the next two decades.
Now that India has completed 50 years of Project Tiger and emerged as the world leader in wild tiger numbers, it is necessary to introspect and have a fresh debate to prepare a road map for the next 50 years.
The true measure of Project Tiger's success should be our ability to ensure harmonious human-wildlife coexistence with minimal conflict. This means developing more sophisticated approaches to conservation that balance wildlife protection with community needs.
We need to invest in better monitoring systems and surveillance measures, better equipped frontline forest staff to deal with mafias and violent mobs, prompt and simple compensation mechanisms, restoration of degraded habitats, develop out-of-the-box solutions, more effective strategies for managing tiger populations in human-dominated landscapes.
Finally, in the context of tiger numbers, some states face the 'problem of plenty' while some are grappling with the 'forests being empty'. The challenge is to address both these issues with urgency and with new approaches and out-of-the-box solutions.