ACCEPT AND SAVE OR DENY AND LEAD THEM TO EXTINCTION? - AUTHORITIES UNDECIDED

The Big Cat Crisis

The Big Cat Crisis comes to us from at least two clear directions. Lions in Gujarat are being poached for the first time ever with a clear commercial motive in mind. Where the tiger is concerned it is about the numbers of how many are there (or not there) in the wild.
There are confirmed reports of the poaching of eight lions from in and around Gir in the last few months. The claws and bones of the animals were found missing indicating that the Asiatic lion too has started to figure in wildlife trade. It is also important to note that in the last four years another 20 odd of these extremely endangered cats have fallen to their death into open wells that dot the Gir landscape in their hundreds. The combined implications can only be considered ominous. If that was not enough the controversy over moving some lions from Gujarat to Kuno-Palpur continues unabated. Whether it is a strategy that will work in the long run is something that one can know only if it is tried. The message from the Gujarat Government is that they rather have the lion die in Gujarat; sending the animal outside the state is out of the question.
In the case of the tiger it continues to be an issue of their numbers. As we go to press there is much anguish being expressed over the fall in numbers of tigers as reported by the Wildlife Institute of India. Estimates based on a new counting protocol indicate that tiger numbers could be about half (or even less) of what were reported in the last census five years ago. Those figures from some of the main tiger states is rather alarming: In Madhya Pradesh from over 700 in 2001-02 in to less than 300 now; Maharashtra – from 238 to about 100 now and in Chattisgarh from 227 to only about 30 (the Indravati Tiger Reserve was not included in the count).
What this can only mean is that a large number of them have died (many poached) in the intervening period – if this is not a big crisis, what can it be? It also points out to the huge inadequacy in the process and attitudes in the earlier methods of counting.
Initial government responses have been rather characteristic – a combination of denial and skepticism – a refusal, it seems, to accept the figures that are coming out. MoEF secretary Dr. Pradipto Ghosh (he has since retired) was reported as having said that these numbers could not be compared to those from the last census and that, in fact, there was nothing wrong with the pugmark method.
The numbers from the counts still perhaps need a final confirmation and validation. Some correction could still perhaps happen. Yet, it would be difficult to deny that we have a serious problem on hand; and that denial would be the most inappropriate way of dealing with the issue.
The combination of responses needed is also well known to us…more numbers and better trained/equipped ground staff, rapid response teams, joint operations with local communities, winning communities over to conservation rather than making them enemies prone to being exploited by poachers and hands-off tiger habitats to 'development' projects.
The direction, however, to finding a solution would be to acknowledge and accept that we have a problem in the first place. The rest can be then made to happen.