BI-MONTHLY OUTREACH JOURNAL OF NATIONAL TIGER CONSERVATION AUTHORITY GOVERNMENT OF INDIA Volume 3 Issue 2 Jan-Feb 2012 TIGER MORTALITY 2011 AS REPORTED BY STATES Natural & other cause Accident Seizure Inside tiger reserve Outside tiger Eliminated by dept Poaching No. of tiger deaths reserve UTTARAKHAND 14 1 1 1 — 17 8 9 KERALA 3 — — 1 — 4 2 2 ASSAM 3 — — 2 1 6 4 2 MADHYA PRADESH 5 — — — — 5 4 1 RAJASTHAN 1 — — — — 1 1 — ORISSA 1 — — — — 1 1 — TAMIL NADU 3 — — — — 3 1 2 WEST BENGAL 3 — — — — 3 2 1 KARNATAKA 3 — — 3 — 6 6 — MAHARASHTRA 2 — 1 2 1 6 1 5 UTTAR PRADESH — — 1 — — 1 1 — CHHATTISGARH — — — 2 — 2 — 2 BIHAR 1 — — — — 1 — 1 TOTAL 39 1 3 11 2 56 31 25 * One old tiger trophy was seized in Delhi Volume 3 Evaluation Protocol EDITOR Issue 2 Status of Dr Rajesh Gopal Jan-Feb Monitoring tigers in Phase-IV 2012 Western EDITORIAL in tiger Ghats COORDINATOR reserves & Landscape S P YADAV source areas Pg 4 Pg 15 CONTENT COORDINATOR Inder MS Kathuria Photo Tiger FEEDBACK Feature Soldiers Assessment Annexe No 5 Camera Protection Management Bikaner House traps at force gets Effectiveness Shahjahan Road New Delhi work in going in Evaluation Kalakad TR Bandipur, P8 [email protected] Pg 14 Nagarhole Cover photo Pg 18 Bharat Goel BI-MONTHLY OUTREACH JOURNAL OF NATIONAL TIGER CONSERVATION AUTHORITY GOVERNMENT OF INDIA n o t e f r o m t h e e d i t o r THE new year, with all its freshness, tigers and its prey in each tiger reserves which would commenced with a new set of initiatives complement the once in four year snapshot assess- from NTCA. Looking back, the last six ment of country level tiger status by NTCA, WII, tiger months were equally eventful. In August States in collaboration with other experts. Another 2011, the Project Tiger Scheme was initiative is to develop a national tiger camera trap revised and its cost estimate was photo database. This will help in keeping track of our stepped up to support voluntary village relocation wild tigers with individual IDs. The launching of “e- from core/critical tiger habitats. Besides, several new Eye” surveillance in Corbett is encouraging. components were added: change in funding pattern The Western Ghats is one of our most promising for TRs in the North-East, raising compensation for tiger landscapes. This issue carries a feature on its man-animal conflict, provision to acquire private assessment. NTCA has accorded in-principle approval holdings within the core, establishment of tiger for declaring Sathyamangalam Wildlife Sanctuary of safari/interpretation/awareness centre in buffer and Tamil Nadu, forming part of this landscape, as a tiger managing through Panchayati Raj Institutions, and reserve. NTCA has also recommended notifying reintroducing the cheetah. Kawal Wildlife Sanctuary in Andhra as a tiger reserve. The Phase-IV monitoring, launched recently, is a Another interesting feature in this issue is camera tiger reserve level monitoring of tiger, its prey and trapping of tigers in Kalakad Mundanthurai. Also, habitat. This needs to be done by the frontline staff Karnataka has earned the distinction of being the first and officers of tiger reserves under the overall coor- tiger state to raise the Special Tiger Protection Force. dination and guidance of chief wildlife wardens. This Dr Rajesh Gopal ongoing monitoring would bring out yearly status of Member-Secretary, NTCA EVALUATION Western Ghats Landscape Vikram Singh his The Western Ghats and the remaining parts of India. Wildlife Sanctuaries and forms (also called Sahyadri The Vindhya and Ajanta Ranges one of the largest Protected Area T Mountains) extend for in the north further strengthen networks in India. The Nilgiri and about 1600 km along the western this barrier. Agasthyamalai Biosphere coastline of India (Ranjit Daniels This region with a total forest- Reserves are also located within 1992). In the north, the Ghats are ed area of 1,01,467 sq km this zone in addition to several bounded by the Satpura Range (Qureshi et al. 2006) comprises reserved forests and sacred positioned in an east-west direc- nine notified Tiger Reserves, groves, totalling to about 5.8% of tion. This range hosts several three proposed (Sathyamangalam the total forested area in the towns of Maharashtra such as TR in Tamil Nadu and Western Ghats alone. Matheran, Lonavala, Khandala Kudremukh and Biligiri and Panchgani and also forms an Rangaswamy Temple Hills (BRT) CONSERVATION SIGNIFICANCE important bio-geographical barri- Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka); The Western Ghats apart from er between the Western Ghats 20 National Parks and about 68 being a store house of tropical 4 | Jan-Feb 2012 | STRIPES biodiversity are also a source of (2005) improvised upon this of large areas for commercial 38 east flowing rivers and 27 framework and added more plantations. flowing into the Arabian Sea details and national level conser- Johnsingh and Goyal (2005) (Dahanukar et al. 2004). These vation rankings to these land- recognised TCU 55 which covers rivers act as important sources of scapes. They also identified the tiger landscape between hydro-electric power, water for breeding habitats and potential Silent Valley-Mudumalai-Bandipur agriculture and industrialisation threats to each of these TCUs. and Dandeli (with 7500 km2 downstream and add impetus to Photo: S P Yadav under protection and about 2000 the development of large cities in km2 of inviolate area) as the the plains of Karnataka, Tamil most important area for the per- Nadu and Kerala. sistence of the species. They also These hills also structure rain- identified five breeding habitats fall and climatic patterns of this in this zone capable of sustain- region, allowing vast scale planta- ing upto 600 tigers and suggest- tions of commercial crops while ed strengthening the connectivity supporting amongst the highest between Mukurthi-Nadugani- abundances of endangered Mudumalai to link populations species of floral and faunal ele- between areas north and south of ments in India. Despite sustain- the Nilgiris. The second impor- ing the high diversity of flora and tant landscape (ranked 8th in the fauna, the region is also suscepti- country) was Megamalai-Periyar- ble to high levels of anthro- Kalakad with 1800 sq km area pogenic disturbances and thus under protection and capable of was amongst the first 18 global holding as many as 100 tigers biodiversity hotspots identified The Malabar Coast of this with a breeding habitat in (Myers et al. 2000). region was recognized in Periyar. Anamalai unit was recog- The south Western Ghats moist the pre-colonial era for its nised as the 9th best landscape deciduous forests and the South importance as a trading with 1600 sq km of protected Western Ghats montane rain zone for spices, thus plant area with a carrying capacity of forests also constitute two of studies were initiated here 100 tigers. WWF’s 200 global terrestrial by the Dutch and the Jhala et al. (2008) estimated ecoregions due to their unique Portuguese as early as 1565 the single largest contiguous biodiversity with high levels of when Garcia de Orta pre- population of tigers in India (and endemism (Olson and Dinerstein pared a list of medicinal probably in the world) within 1998; Olson et al. 2001). plants. The region also Nagarhole-Mudumalai-Bandipur- In 2006, the Nature hosted one of the first Wayanad landscape with occu- Conservation foundation (NCF), comprehensive botanical pancy of 10,800 km2 and an esti- Mysore and the Ashoka Trust for treatises (not following mated tiger population of 280 Research in Ecology and the binomial nomenclature) individuals. Environment (ATREE), Bangalore from the pre-Linnaean era However, despite the conserva- submitted a proposal to the of the modern world, tion impediments, a strong lobby UNESCO to include the Western Hortus Malabaricus of conservationists in this zone Ghats sub-cluster comprising of (The Garden of Malabar), have enabled the creation of invi- the region between the Sahyadris by Heinrich Van Rheede Tot olate zones in parts of Nagarhole and the Agasthyamalai Hills on Draakenstein between NP and Bhadra Tiger Reserve the World Heritage List. The 1678-1703. It was in 12 (Karanth 2007) by relocating vil- proposal is under review. volumes and inspired Carl lages from both these Protected Wikramanayake et al. (1998) Linnaeus to write his Areas and making them partially recognised two important level Species Plantarum. or fully inviolate. Further, they one tiger conservation units have ensured closure of mining (TCUs) within this landscape com- operations in Protected Areas prising of Dandeli-Bandipur and CONSERVATION STATUS such as Kudremukh National Park Periyar-Kalakad regions while The major impediments to tiger (Krishnaswamy et al. 2006) and Parambikulam National Park was conservation in this zone are the prohibited the creation of dams included in level II TCUs based existence of hydroelectric proj- which would submerge large bio- on their importance in tiger con- ects, hunting (Madhusudan and diversity rich areas in Silent servation. Johnsingh and Goyal Karanth 2002) and deforestation Valley National Park, while, STRIPES | Jan-Feb 2012 | 5 organisations such as the NCF Bathery highway, are a distur- forested area of 23,338 sq km. It work in plantation forest mosaics bance to wildlife in the area. has three Tiger Reserves while a and restore the natural vegeta- proposal is awaited from the tion in those regions (Shankar c) Bhadra Tiger Reserve | state for one more, Raman and Mudappa 2003). Constituted in 1972 by joining Sathyamangalam. There are five Jagara Valley and Lakkavalli national parks, 21 wildlife sanc- KARNATAKA | The state has forests in the Malnad region. tuaries and one conservation 36,190 sq km under forest cover. Small parts of the reserve are reserve. Large parts of the State It has four Tiger Reserves and also located in Shimoga district.