Yesterday I wrote about the problem of tigers living as pets in the USA (https://seeanimalswild.com/2022/02/04/there-are-more-than-10000-tigers-living-in-the-usa-with-under-4000-in-the-wild/(opens in a new tab)
Today and over the next few days, I am going to try to do an overview of how the 12 tiger range countries have managed in their target of doubling tiger numbers in the last 12 years.
In 2010 it is estimated by WWF that India had 1706 tigers living wild within its borders. There are now estimated to be roughly 2967, which would mean an impressive growth but not meeting the doubling goal they have however claimed to have met it (often with lower starting figures). Still a population increase of 72% is not a bad showing in just 12 years. I should note that this number of 2967 is also listed on many pages as the number of tigers in 2018. So it is possible that they have increased the number further over the last 4 years – data is hard to find. One positive point for the future is currently wild tigers only live in about 10% of the potential 115,830 square miles of habitat. Either way, the Indian country is not satisfied with this number, and are aiming to increase numbers by a further 35%. One thing that has been recognized, is that reserves missing apex predators do not do as well. This is for a variety of reasons, but the main ones come down to regulating availability of grazing for too many herbivores. Mizoram’s Dampa reserve, West Bengal’s Buxa reserve and Jharkhand’s Palamau reserve are three tiger reserves within India which have no tigers.
