While India is home to 70 percent of the world’s tiger population, external factors constantly threaten to undermine the country’s conservation efforts. 28 tigers have been killed this year, and efforts are constantly being made to save them.
Therefore, news of 21 tigers being camera trapped during a trans-boundary tiger-monitoring programme conducted across Manas National Park in India and Royal Manas National Park in Bhutan comes as a great wave of relief.
According to a report published by The Telegraph, of the 21 camera trappings, 11 were obtained from Royal Manas National Park and 14 from Manas National Park. Four tigers were common to both the landscapes.
This survey to monitor big cats across the Transboundary Manas Conservation Area (TraMCA) is the second of its kind. This survey has shown a heartwarming increase of 50 percent over the first survey in 2011-12 that had counted just 14 big cats in the Manas landscape, as reported by TOI.
TraMCA is a joint initiative of India and Bhutan for trans-boundary biodiversity conservation.
Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar announced in April that efforts to save the tiger have pushed India’s population of the big cat to nearly 2,500.
However, experts do think India’s increasing tiger numbers may be flawed.
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