One of the largest challenges faced for conservationists in India is human tiger conflict. As we know HTC occurs when a wild tiger interacts with humans, their animals or livestock, and this results in an injury or death to human, livestock or tiger. The solution is to minimize contact between wild tigers and humans, however, as Asia develops competition for space and habitat increases. Despite many countries doubling their tiger population since 2010, the path is still not clear for the species.
Tigers lost their lives because of their behaviour towards humans. For example, Shivamallappa Basappa, a farmer in south-western India, was killed and partially eaten by a tiger while grazing his cows on the edge of Bandipur Tiger Reserve Karnataka State.
He was the third tiger victim in the span of just two weeks. Approximately 373,000 people have died due to tiger attacks between 1800 and 2009 averaging about 1800 kills per year, the majority of these attacks occurring in India, Nepal and Southeast Asia. Also, according to a report tigers kill approximately 19 livestock animals a month. Often problem tigers are controversially shot dead to prevent further conflict.
Tracking, tracing, and monitoring the big cat
Found in dense forests, grasslands, and mangroves to snow-capped mountains – these elusive big cats are hard to spot and challenging to track. WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature-India) works with state forest departments to monitor these feline species across tiger landscapes. their field teams are involved in setting up camera trappings at great lengths to study the behaviour and movement of tigers. Such efforts will help estimate population size, trends, and other demographics for tigers, co-predators, and prey. This helps tracking down the tigers and keep updates of their movements in the forest
Wildlife Corridors are Crucial to prevent Human Tiger Conflict
Forest fragmentation is a major cause of human tiger conflict. Most of HTC occur on the pathways passing through the forests this is where tigers attack humans. One way to reduce conflicts with wild animals is by guiding their movements in developed areas. Wildlife corridors, areas of preserved native habitat in human dominated regions, provide wildlife with a safe pathway as they travel between larger areas of intact habitat. By placing corridors away from potential conflict hotspots, such as farms or ranches, animals can be steered out of harm’s way and instances of human-wildlife conflict can be proactively avoided.
Reducing tiger injuries
Tigers and other large felines that attack people and livestock are sometimes wounded animals, and the wounds are often caused by snares, traps or gunshot. Rangers found that 77% of the tigers that attacked humans were wounded by humans, usually in poaching attempts. In both Indonesia and China, tigers wounded by snares have killed both livestock and people.
Relocation of human settlements
Relocation of human settlements is a preventive measure which tries to alter ecological setting to prevent human tiger conflict rather than dealing with it after conflict occurs. This strategy has been implemented in India under the Indian government’s wildlife conservation schemes since the early 1970s. Relocation has been a critical tool to reduce habitat fragmentations and to drive recovery of many wild tiger populations from the brink of extirpation in several Indian reserves.
Compensation schemes for tiger conflict
A good example of a successful compensation scheme for human-tiger conflicts is the Interim Relief Scheme (IRS) in Uttar Pradesh and the areas around the Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) in India. WWF India provides interim compensation to the Government of Uttar Pradesh and the areas around CTR to relief villagers who lost livestock to tigers. The provided compensation will be reimbursed by the government to WWF. The main features of the compensation scheme are: the incentive for providing immediate information regarding the occurrence of a kill of a cow, bullock, buffalo within 72 hours of the incident, and immediate payment of a fixed amount supplementing the government compensation.
Working with local communities to reduce tiger conflict
Communities are at the heart of our tiger conservation efforts. The success of our tiger conservation measures depends on the active engagement of local communities living around Tiger Reserves. Our comprehensive sustainable livelihood programmes encourage and enable local communities to reduce their high dependency on forests for natural resources.
Reducing negative human-tiger interaction
Working closely with local communities living around tiger habitats to reduce negative human-tiger interactions. Likewise, immediate financial support is provided as interim relief to victims in case of loss of cattle or other pet animals payment during an unfortunate human injury or death event. This interim relief helps appease sudden anger and controls the retaliatory killing of tigers by the local communities who have suffered losses.
Disguise
Villagers in India have had recent success preventing tiger attacks by exploiting their knowledge of big cat behaviour. Tigers stalk their prey and attack from behind, so forest workers began wearing masks on the back of their heads to prevent sneak attacks. Over a 3-year period, no attacks were reported among those wearing masks, while 29 unmasked people in the same region were attacked over 18 months. Unfortunately, the effectiveness of masks decreases over time as tigers become habituated to the disguise.
Electricity
Conservationists in India have even tried to discourage tiger attacks by rigging human shaped dummies with electricity. While a sharp electric zap may sound like an extreme way to deter animals, such methods are highly preferable over lethal control measures. Such innovate solutions are commonly used to prevent human elephant conflict.
Strengthened national policies
Innovative and preventative actions e.g., fencing, land use planning and livestock management post event mitigation, e.g., insurance and compensation schemes and alternative livelihoods programs HTC hotspot mapping and understanding local tolerance trends toward tigers better trained and equipped rapid response teams in all HTC hotspots monitoring to inform where and why certain actions are not working.
We all know this will not stop till we give the tigers their space. We should not farm around the tiger conservation where there is a possibility of tiger attacks. Not grazing livestock in the forests and the most important thing is to know that tigers are not our enemies. We need to protect these wonderful big cats which are threaten to the extinction.
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