Tigers have vanished from the Ranthambhore national park again, this time eight of them between August 2005 and October 2006.

This is the same period in which, after an investigation by The Indian Express first highlighted the crisis of the missing tiger in national parks across the country, several steps were taken by both the Centre and the state government.

The Prime Minister intervened, a Tiger Task Force was set up, the Supreme Court asked the CBI to probe all poaching cases, a Wildlife Crime Bureau was approved and a comprehensive tiger census is under way.

In fact, the startling discovery of new missing tigers from perhaps the most well-known national park in the country is based on evidence gathered as part of the census exercise.

In August 2005, a joint census by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), independent experts and the state government, had put the tiger count in Ranthambhore at 26 — 21 adults (age 20 months and above) and 5 “sub-adults” (average age 12-20 months).

But 16 months later, in October 2006, when the five sub-adults would have all grown up to be adults taking the total adult count to 26, a “photo trapping exercise” by WII as part of the national census has shown 31 tigers but only 18 of them are adults, 13 are cubs.

In other words, eight adult tigers have gone missing — four male and four female.

This evidence lies in the yet-to-be-released WII catalogue, a copy of which is with The Sunday Express.

... contd.