Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Cool for Cats
India is justifiably famous for its tigers, and just admit it - you secretly hope to see one.
But India is also home to 14 other species of cats, so don't miss out on any opportunity to
see one of the other gorgeous felines.
It could be said that the global effort to protect tigers all started in India, and many ex-
perts agree that India's sizeable population of tigers is the species' last great stronghold.
Unfortunately, despite a massive and well-funded conservation effort, the black market in
tigers remains an irresistible temptation for both wildlife-poaching gangs and impoverished
villagers, so tiger numbers continue to fall at a precipitous rate, even in supposedly secure
sanctuaries.
Protection efforts have been successfully made on behalf of the Asiatic lion, a close rel-
ative of the more familiar African lion.
PROJECT TIGER
When naturalist Jim Corbett first raised the alarm in the 1930s, no one believed that tigers would ever be
threatened. At the time it was believed there were 40,000 tigers in India, although no one had ever conducted a
census. Then came Independence, which put guns into the hands of villagers who pushed into formerly off-limits
hunting reserves to hunt for highly profitable tiger skins. By the time an official census was conducted in 1972,
there were only 1800 tigers left and international outcry prompted Indira Gandhi to make the tiger the national
symbol of India and set up Project Tiger ( http://projecttiger.nic.in ) . The project has since established 39 tiger re-
serves totalling over 32,000 sq km that not only protect this top predator but all animals that live in the same habit-
ats. After an initial round of successes (perhaps owing to counting anomalies), tiger numbers have continuously
plummeted from 3600 in 2002 to around 1700 due to relentless poaching. And although numbers were supposedly
up in the 2011 census, and though countless rupees and high-tech equipment continue to be devoted to the effort,
the slide towards extinction in the wild appears inevitable as available tiger habitat continues to shrink.
Search WWH ::




Custom Search