India's tiger population rises again

Number above 3,000, new census says, on 50th anniversary of landmark conservation project

Tigers at the Ranthambore National Park in Sawai Madhopur, India. AP

India’s tiger population has risen above 3,000, according to a new survey of the endangered animals which used camera traps and careful tracking.

The increase, to 3,167 this year up from 2,967 last year, has been hailed as a “proud moment” by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India is home to around 70 per cent of the world’s tiger population. This year is the 50th anniversary of “Project Tiger”, launched by former prime minister Indira Gandhi.

The project divided the country’s tiger reserves into “core” areas, where human activity such as deforestation is prohibited, and “buffer zones” where land use is mixed between farming and conservation.

The largest of all cats, tigers once roamed throughout central, eastern and southern Asia.

But in the past 100 years more than 93 per cent of its historic range has been lost. It now only survives in scattered populations in 13 countries, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Surveys are conducted every four years, using computer programs to individually identify each creature.

The rate of increase has slowed to less than 7 per cent over the period, down from more than 30 per cent in the previous four years.

“Our family is expanding,” Mr Modi said at a ceremony in the southern city of Mysuru on Sunday. “This is a success not only for India but the entire world.”

Deforestation, poaching and human encroachment on habitats have devastated tiger populations across Asia. Mr Modi said India had been able to increase its numbers thanks to “people's participation” and the country's “culture of conservation”.

In 1900, more than 100,000 tigers were estimated to roam the planet. But that fell to a record low of 3,200 in 2010.

That year, India and 12 other countries with tiger populations signed an agreement to double their big cat numbers by 2022.

India is believed to have had a tiger population of around 40,000 at the time of independence from Britain in 1947.

That fell over subsequent decades to about 3,700 in 2002 and an all-time low of 1,411 four years later, but numbers have since risen steadily.