Tiger Conservation

Tiger Conservation:

Why is it so important? Why is it that we see countless ads on the number '1411' in the TV with top sport persons and movie stars batting for the saving tigers in India? Why so much fuss about this!!After all tigers are a group of dangerous animals..they prey on deers, boars..they don't even leave humans when they are provoked by them..then why on earth there are efforts made to conserve them? Will try to answer some of these intriguing questions below:

Why tigers need to be conserved?

Tigers form a key component of the forest ecosystem. Existence of tigers and forests is mutually exclusive. One can't survive without the other. In short, the health of forest ecosystem can be gauged by the number of tigers living in it. I'd like to draw a parallel between the number of tigers in a forest with a laptop battery which indicates the life of a laptop. Needless to say the importance of existence of forests for all of us. India is host to the largest population of tigers in the world. Unfortunately the the population is on a rapid decline. Reason: human greed which undoubtedly is the the primary reason for causing the worst of the crises that the world has ever seen..starting from the sub prime crisis in the world of finance which brought the world to its knees to the poaching of tigers in the world of wild life.

What threatens the tigers?

Poaching by human beings. Why do they poach? To make money out of exporting tiger parts to China where there is a huge demand for those. Apparently body parts of a tiger are used to make certain medicines in China. I won't be surprised to know if that is the secret behind the population explosion of China!

What are the bottlenecks in the way of tiger conservation in India?

- Dearth of forest personnel to man the tiger reserves. To cite a few numbers on forest personnel vacancy - karnataka has a vacancy of 27%, WB- 31%, Orissa - 36%, Jharkhand - 59%
- Lack of able leadership..wild life conservation being a state subject in India,the onus lies with the chief minister of the state to lead from the front to combat the menace of tiger poaching
- Lack of proper training..u can't afford to have a guard manning the tiger reserve with a lathi while the poachers would be definitely better armed than him.
- Tourism invading into the habitat of tigers. We simply can't afford to have a horrendous site of 10 jeeps surrounding one tiger which currently is quite a familiar site in many tiger reservoirs in India
- Penalty imposed on poachers is not commensurate with the gravity of the crime committed

Need of the hour:
- Fill forest personnel vacancies in the next 6 months
- Able political leadership to show the way for curbing this menace
- Proper training of forest personnel
- Notify all buffer zones and strike a balance between tourism and wild life conservation
- Villages in the core areas to be relocated fairly i.e. adequate compensation should be given to them for relocating to a new place
- Crackdown on poaching and speedy conviction

Last and the most important need of the hour is for the government to get its act together in terms of expediting the implementation of its policies towards conservation of tigers. Going by how GoI works, the really have to work in a way which is pretty much uncharacteristic of them to pull off the much needed task of saving tigers.

P.S.:Please leave a comment or two while you read through!