Reserves not clear on tiger numbers, one may be denotified
THE INDIAN EXPRESS
July 28, 2009
Neha Sinha
Of
the 37 tiger reserves in the country, there is no information available
on the number of tigers — or if there are any at all — in as many as
seven. The Indian Express discovered this at an All India Meet for
Tiger Reserve Directors in Sariska over the weekend, where each of them
made their presentations.
Given the figures, National Tiger
Conservation Authority (NTCA) Member Secretary Rajesh Gopal admitted
that at least one of the reserves, Indravati in Chhattisgarh, should be
denotified. With Indravati in the grip of Naxalism, he said, “tiger
protection efforts in the past 20 years have failed”.
Six other
reserves are facing similar problems — while Simlipal (Orissa) and
Palamau (Jharkhand) are shackled by violent Naxalite groups, Manas
(Assam), Namdapha (Arunachal Pradesh), Dampa (Mizoram) and Buxa (West
Bengal) suffer from problems of inaccessibility and poor tiger density. news source
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