Tiger Population In Country Growing At 6% Per Annum, Says Centre

New Delhi: The Centre has pegged the annual growth rate of tiger population at 6% and average deaths per year at 98 in the country.

Due to efforts of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTA), the tiger has been taken from the brink to an assured path of recovery, which is evident in findings of the quadrennial All India Tiger Estimation conducted in 2006, 2010, 2014 and 2018, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change stated on Thursday.

The findings have shown a healthy annual growth rate of tigers at 6% which offsets natural losses and keeps tigers at the habitats carrying capacity level. Between 2012 and 2021, the average tiger deaths per year in the country hover around 98, which is balanced by the annual recruitment as highlighted by this robust growth rate, the Ministry said in a release.

Claiming that poaching of tigers has come down significantly due to several steps taken by the NTA under the Project Tiger scheme, the Ministry said the statistics can be available from the NTA website and portal www.tigernet.nic.in.

Lamenting that certain media reports have highlighted the death of tigers in a lopsided manner during 2021, the release said those do not take into account the gamut of processes for dealing with tiger death and the natural gains obtained in tiger conservation.

“In the news reports, it has been reported that out of 126 tiger deaths, 60 tigers had died due to poachers, accidents, man-animal conflict outside protected areas while ignoring the process involved in ascribing tiger mortality cause,” the Ministry said.

Stating that the NTCA has a stringent protocol to ascribe cause to a tiger death, which is treated as unnatural, it said a detailed analysis of the documents can ascertain the cause of death of 60 tigers outside tiger reserves.