Author: Anusha Chaudhary and Shweta Shivakumar 

This blog is a special feature highlighting a recent publication reviewing 30 years of Centre for Wildlife Studies tiger research and conservation efforts in Malenad landscape

The highlights are:

  • Evaluating the successes and failures of tiger recovery programs across a 38,000 sq. km landscape during the past five decades. 
  • Pointed out the flaws of  ‘pugmark census’ method to monitor the tiger population.
  • Large scale concerted conservation efforts led to an increase in the tigers from ~70 to ~391 in the last 45 years.
  • Programs such as Karnataka Tiger Conservation Project, Wild Seve and Wild Shaale were launched to address tiger conservation efforts.
  • Scientists estimate that India can potentially house 10,000 to 15,000 tigers.  

The magnificent striped cat, Panthera tigris, was once found throughout the country, from the foothills of the Himalayas to the Western Ghats of India. Over the past 150 years, these big cats have suffered a major decline in population with a 93% reduction in their range within Asia.  Continued threats such as poaching for their body parts, game – hunting, shooting in retaliation to human-wildlife conflict, prey depletion and loss of habitat, are responsible for the collapse of tiger populations. Scientists from the Centre for Wildlife Studies (CWS) are pioneers in developing long term monitoring techniques of this magnificent feline since the 1980s.

In a landmark publication, CWS Scientists have authored a review publication on tiger population monitoring in the Malenad region of India. The study exemplifies the trials and error of tiger conservation in India, over six mega-projects from 1986 to 2017 under the Malenad Tiger Program (MTP). It also examines the benefits and challenges faced while implementing a research and conservation program, at a large scale. These consistent research endeavours have significantly influenced the methods of monitoring tiger populations, and conservation policies in India and around the world. In 2005, Dr. Ullas K. Karanth’s pioneering efforts led to obliteration of the use of a flawed pugmark census method to assess tiger populations. The invaluable learning from this mega-project provided pragmatic, cost-effective and successful strategies for future tiger recovery efforts in most other tiger range countries.

The Malenad landscape currently houses 10–15% of the population of tigers in India and can potentially support 1,300 tigers. MTP was a multidisciplinary program composed of different inter-related projects. The ecological research objectives were (a) to assess prey availability, (b) to evaluate prey selection behaviour and consumption rates of these prey, and diet of tigers (c) to estimate tiger densities and survival rates and (d) to detect the presence of tigers within a mosaic landscape of the Malenad region.  

The team of scientists adopted various ecological methods such as sign surveys (pugmarks, scat, direct sightings of predators and prey), radio telemetry to track tiger movement, photographic capture-recapture modelling to estimate tiger densities, direct sighting transect survey to assess prey abundance, etc. These methods were developed, tested at various sites and showed successful application in tiger population monitoring in India and other South-East Asian countries. Collection of data to create a massive database of tigers and their prey numbers has been a herculean undertaking. For the ungulate prey estimation alone, ~800 volunteers walked 49,199 km across five reserves to detect 33,159 cumulative prey clusters. Tiger densities varied across the protected areas over the years, with a total of 900+ individual tigers identified using >88,000 photographic captures from 1991 – 2017. 

Multiple conservation programs under the umbrella of MTP made major impacts in the tiger recovery across different parks. These programs were aimed at evaluating the effect of anthropogenic activities on tigers, promoting science-based conservation among the local volunteers in forested areas etc. Four projects under MTP concentrated on tiger conservation interventions. The Karnataka tiger conservation project was aimed at expanding tiger protection mechanisms of the state government, which required skills and material resource capacity building. To mitigate and understand the patterns of human-wildlife conflict (HWC), the Wild Seve project was launched in Karnataka. The program personnel assisted people affected by HWC to file and monitor claims and to receive ex-gratia payment from the Indian government. The Wild Shaale project has steered the promotion of environmental literacy and generation of interest and empathy for wildlife and wild spaces among rural school children living in high conflict zones. Besides the creation of exclusive curricula, it included a variety of engaging activities and games with defined learning objectives in local languages based on their local conservation issues. 

The key takeaway from the MTP is that there is still hope for the recovery of tigers in the future. The constraints placed by government-managed tiger recovery programs and poor allocation of resources in many areas has decelerated the tiger population recovery in India. Several socio-economic factors also affect the success of these programs. However, as a result of consistent conservation interventions, tiger numbers rose from ~70 to ~391 over ~45 years in the Malenad landscape. The comprehensive research has shown that, in ideal conditions,  India could support 10,000-15,000 tigers. Persistent efforts of advocacy, rigorous science and conservation in a favourable socio-economic context, is essential for future tiger recovery.

Original Research Article: Tigers against the odds: Applying macro-ecology to species recovery in India – Dr. K. Ullas Karanth, N. Dr. Samba Kumar, Dr. Krithi K. Karanth, Biological Conservation, Volume 252, December 2020, 108846, (2020).

You can access the research paper here.