Kaziranga big cat deaths shock conservationists
Naresh Mitra & Saumyadipta Chatterjee | TNN
Guwahati/Kolkata: The death of two big cats in Kaziranga within four days has triggered panic among wildlife conservationists about the future of the tiger — a species dwindling by the day across the country — especially with international poaching gangs working overtime to supply tiger parts to South-East Asian nations.An adult tiger’s decomposed carcass was found from the Kaziranga National Park’s Kohra forest range on Friday, while on Monday a dead subadult tiger was recovered from an island on the Brahmaputra, under the sixth addition of the park. Although park authorities, representatives of National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), WWF-India, veterinarians and other conservation NGOs ruled out the involvement of poachers in the two tiger deaths, wildlife activists warned that smugglers of tiger parts could easily cash in on the increasing number of big cat casualties.
“If poachers had been involved, how come they left behind the tiger’s carcass to decompose deep inside the park at a time when every tiger part is on demand in the international grey market?” said Kaziranga director S N Buragohain. It’s estimated that 10 gm of tiger bones alone fetch more that $30 in China and Vietnam.
Former Project Tiger director P.K.Sen blamed the system for tiger deaths. “Tigers are dying everywhere in the country. The entire protection mechanism to save our wildlife, including the big cats, has failed miserably. The local patrolling system is in shambles,” he rued.
Wildlife expert and Sanctuary Asia editor Bittu Sahgal said the two incidents might have confirmed that the tigers might have died of intraspecific conflict, but he didn’t rule out involvement of international gangs.
“Patrolling in key parks like Kaziranga, the Sunderbans and Corbett is still possibly the best in India. But this cannot be said about most other tiger reserves. In the past year, over 100 tiger and leopard deaths have been reported, with international gangs at work,” he said.
Soumyadeep Dutta of Nature’s Beckon warned that such tiger deaths should not be taken lightly as poachers are now targeting big cats like never. Wildlife biologist of Aaranyak M Feroz Ahmed, who is involved in the cameratrapping tiger census in Kaziranga, said, “We will see more tiger deaths unless the park area is extended and corridors are restored.”
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