By Arun Pratap Singh
Dehradun, 18 Jan: The Uttarakhand Government is aware of the increasing incidents of human-wildlife conflict in the state in the recent past. The government is now considering a plan to shift some tigers out of the state and is likely to invite proposals from other states through the forest department in this regard. While the leopards in the state have been known to attack human beings for long in various parts of the state, recently there have been several incidents where even the tigers have been spotted straying out of the forests and roaming around human habitats. This is largely due to the fact that the tiger population in the state has increased significantly in the past few years and is considered to have crossed the threshold level of carrying capacity in the state’s tiger reserves and their buffer zones. The competition for prey has increased and many weaker tigers have been pushed out of the deep forests by the dominant ones. The situation has reached a level that tigers have been spotted not only outside the core forests and their buffer zones but even in the hills, which are generally not considered to be tiger territory. In the past two and a half months, five people have died in tiger attacks in Kumaon. The surprising thing is that three incidents are related to the hill areas like Bhimtal, where it has been usually the leopards which prowl, not the tigers.
Sources in the forest department remind that the tiger population, as estimated in the Tiger Census, is around 560 in the state and, of them, 476 tigers were counted in the forests of Nainital, Udham Singh Nagar and Corbett Tiger Reserve. This number is considered to be beyond the carrying capacity of these forests. The stronger and dominant tigers are pushing weaker ones out of the forests and forcing them to seek prey elsewhere. This is one major reason behind the increasing incidents of tigers being spotted roaming in human habitations and attacking human beings.
It is worth reminding here that last month, a tiger was spotted and captured on camera in Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary in district Almora and also in Vriddh Jageshwar, also in district Almora, which is a hill district.
In such a situation, the government feels that a proper balance can be maintained in the forests of the state by shifting some of the tigers to other states. This can help reduce the increasing human-tiger conflicts. In this regard, proposals may soon be invited from other states which have good forest covers. One such proposal is already pending before the State Forest Department from Rajasthan and this is being considered according to State Wildlife Warden Dr Sameer Sinha.
At present, there are around 216 tigers in Nainital and US Nagar forests, which form part of the Western Circle. So far, in this circle, 7 persons have died due to tiger attacks in the past 2 years. Most of the attacks were reported to be in Fatehpur Range of this circle. The tiger census figures released last year in July have indicated presence of more tigers than the carrying capacity of these forests. Between the last census and the census report released in July last year, the population of tigers in the state increased from 442 to 560. Tiger attacks have also been reported in Khatima, Tanakpur, Ramnagar and Bhimtal.
The forest officials concede that the idea of shifting some tigers to other states has come from Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami. This is not going to be an easy exercise and it also depends whether other states are really interested in having more tigers. Even the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the Modi Government at the Centre have to agree to this possibility. The states which have tigers in significant numbers include Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Kerala and Assam. The proposal received from Rajasthan is being technically considered.
