BENGALURU: India’s tiger territory has increased over the last decade, even in areas marked as the world’s most densely populated human settlements, a new study published in Science journal shows. This comes amid global wildlife population declining by 73%.
The conservation success story reveals that tiger-occupied territory in India increased by 30% between 2006 and 2018, expanding at a rate of about 2,929 sq km per year.India now hosts around 75% of the world’s wild tigers across around 1.4 lakh sq km.
The research, led by scientist and conservationist Yadvendradev V Jhala, is particularly noteworthy as the increase occurred in regions shared with around 60 million people, challenging the traditional assumption of incompatibility between the big cats and humans. “This sets a perfect narrative of wildlife-human co-occurrence,” the researchers note.
But they stress that success depends on maintaining protected core areas within socioeconomically prosperous and politically stable regions.
The study analysed data collected by 44,000 personnel over the years and found that tigers consistently occupied about 35,255 sq km of protected areas rich in prey species.
The study identifies several areas for potential future expansion of tiger populations, particularly in Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Jharkhand.