Organised crime against tigers

On May 16, four men were arrested in Raiwala, near Dehradun, with a tiger skin and 25 kg of bones. Eleven feet long and five feet wide, the seized skin became exhibit no. 30 in the list of poached tigers so far this year.

Barely a month ago, animal lovers had celebrated an increase in the number of wild tigers for the first time in a century. There are now 3,890 tigers in the world, up from 3,200 six years ago. India is home to 2,500 of them, witnessing a steady rise in number over the past decade. Alongside the successes of tiger conservation projects, however, the poachings and killings continue unabated.

The number of dead tigers, from various natural and unnatural causes, has already touched 62 this year, according to the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI). The grisly haul of seized skin, bones and body parts points to rampant poaching. In comparison, 25 tigers were illegally killed in all of 2015. The deaths have been reported across 11 tiger reserves countrywide, including five (or six, according to various reports) deaths at Corbett, India’s premier reserve for the big cat.

“The one conclusion I can draw is an increase in demand from China,” says Belinda Wright, director of WPSI. That demand has long driven tiger poaching in India. In October 2003, customs officers in Tibet had captured a truck transporting the skin of 31 tigers, 581 leopards and 778 otters, a copy of the Delhi edition of an English daily stuck to the bundle like a calling card. Enforcement authorities have for decades struggled to break the supply link to the Chinese market for wildlife parts.

“We are seeing these [spurt in] deaths because of inadequate anti-poaching staff and not enough intelligence on the poaching networks,” says PK Sen, the former director of Project Tiger. The success, however limited, of the tiger project could be the very reason for the animal’s current plight. “A number of tigers are grown-up in Corbett, Ranthambhore and Kanha and now need new territory; with not enough vegetation cover available and a decreased prey density, tigers need to move further,” Sen explains. As the grown animals move out of the core reserve areas into the less-protected buffer zones, they become vulnerable. Most of the tiger reserves have a poor, degraded forest cover outside the core zone, with scattered human settlements. “If people don’t co-operate, the forest department is not strong enough to stand up to them; we need the help of the rural development departments,” Sen adds. Man-animal conflicts have become more frequent near tiger reserves, as also in the buffer areas. At the Dudhwa National Park in Uttar Pradesh, four people were killed by tigers in March-April.

Forest officials — the first line of defence for the tiger against poachers — are understaffed, underpaid and under-equipped for the task and, hence, unmotivated. Additionally, the number of officials killed on duty is higher in India than in any other country. The non-profit International Ranger Federation (IRF) noted that 72 forest rangers were killed in India from 2012-14, while other countries lost fewer than 10 each during the same period. “It is very difficult to manage a tiger reserve with the number of staff currently available,” says Tito Joseph, programme manager with WPSI.

Eleven years after the Tiger Task Force (set up to glean lessons from Sariska, where tiger numbers plummeted from 16 to zero in 2005) reported that nearly 20 per cent of forest staff posts remained vacant, the problem has only grown in magnitude. “There are more than 40 per cent of the posts vacant right now,” says Sen. Another problem flagged by the Tiger Task Force was the high average age of the personnel — 42 for forest guards and 46 for foresters and rangers. Younger staff was seen necessary for more effective patrols.

“All vacancies should be filled and the effort by front-level staff should be recognised. A special force needs to be set up in every tiger reserve,” Joseph recommends.

The extremely low conviction rates for wildlife offences add to the staff’s woes, as that further emboldens poachers. To date, the WPSI has recorded only 61 convictions for killing a tiger or trading in tiger parts. “Poachers are a step ahead of us, they have their networks, they constantly test the system, and when the enforcement becomes better at one reserve, they change sites,” says Bishal Singh Bonal, head of National Tiger Conservation Authority.

In Corbett, it is a new gang of Bawarias, a nomadic tribe from Rajasthan who were earlier blamed for emptying out the Sariska reserve. Some poachers have been active for generations and know the jungle all too well. Effective intelligence is needed to foil these multifarious threats. “We are fighting with organised crime groups, we need a specialised effort to track these gangs, monitor repeat offenders; we should take the assistance of state police to monitor people,” Bonal says.

After a worryingly high-fatal year so far, more threats loom ahead with the approach of monsoon — the peak season for poaching. The claws are out… of the human kind.

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