Tiger on its last leg

“Why should they wait for the CBI report? The government can take administrative action by fixing responsibility,because officers continued to lie for years,” Chundawat told The Indian Express.

The decline began in mid-2002 when the Park lost its first tigress and in December that year a breeding tigress was found dead. Since then the Park,spread over 543 sq km,continued to lose wild cats at regular intervals and a census by the Wildlife Institute of India confirmed in January 2009 that it had none.

Till that time the state forest officials blatantly used to estimate the number of tigers between 10 and 20. In between they wrote articles about how Panna was being managed well and how the tiger count was nearly two dozen. Even last year the then minister of state for forests,Rajendra Shukla,had told the state Assembly that only four tigers had been poached in the state between 2004 and 2009.

The government blamed the presence of dacoits in the region that led to a lack of vigil. But after the tiger count was found to be nil,a Special Investigation Team set up by the Union Environment and Forests Ministry submitted its report to the state government in June concluding that the tiger population showed decline without any ecological reason and that poaching was the major cause of extinction.

The Central probe report said the maximum decline took place between 2003 and 2005,and accused the Park management of completely ignoring the warnings by scientists,individuals,NGOs and even the Central Empowered Committee. “The advisories/ guidelines and red alerts on protection and monitoring protocols issued by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA),time and again,were not followed in action and spirit,” the probe report said,alleging that there was no transparency in utilisation of funds provided under the Project Tiger scheme.

The report pointed out that,on the one hand,there was staff shortage,and on the other,range officers were working in the Park for more than a decade and insinuated that they had developed vested interests over and above their duties. There was complete lack of coordination between the police and civil administration,especially in intelligence gathering. The report said senior officers of the rank of the PCCF and the Chief Wildlife Warden and Additional PCCF visited Panna several times,but never mentioned in their tour reports that the Park was facing problems,which could be a cause of disappearance of tigers.

Almost dismissing the Central report,the Madhya Pradesh government formed its own committee to study “biological and administrative” reasons for the tiger’s disappearance. The committee was given three months to submit its report,but it took eight months. The report was submitted to Singh,only because he insisted.

The state probe concluded that skewed male-female ratio,territorial fights,revenge killings and unbridled tourism were the main reasons. It said poaching was one reason but,if it took place,it happened outside the Park’s core area.

Former PCCF J J Dutta,who was part of the state committee,alleged that the Central team had arrived at its conclusion hastily unlike the state team that took months to submit its report by taking a composite view.

NTCA Member-Secretary Rajesh Gopal,who was part of the state committee,has not signed the report as yet. “I will sign it only after reading it completely,as it was structured by someone else,” he said.