Of late, the wild cats in Kerala have had the wildlife protection mandarins growling at the Centre. They are offended because the recent national tiger survey—conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India for the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA)—indicates a decline in their numbers in the state. Kerala’s wildlife officials claim that their image has been sullied because the survey has furnished numbers which are much below the actual figures.

The din began after the survey claimed that the state has only 46 big cats. Read that against the numbers provided earlier to the Rajya Sabha: Kerala had 134 tigers in 1979, 89 in 1984, 45 in 1989, marginally improving to 57 in 1993.

“That was a grossly unscientific, unreliable tiger survey. We have already written to the NTCA about it. We have now begun our own survey in all our tiger areas. We are sure the state has more than 70 tigers, close to 75-80,” says a senior Forest Department official.

A big bone of contention is the number of big cats in the state’s Periyar Tiger Reserve area. The central survey says 23, the state claims 35. Another is Parambikulam, where the central surveyors found only eight tigers, but the state sees “at least 20”.

Kerala’s Forest officials claim that the Central survey missed the 15-odd tiger cubs supposed to be in the tiger reserves, and that the methodology used by them was not foolproof either.

This, even though the Central survey and the state rely on the same basic enumeration technique: the camera trap. According to this method, cameras fixed at strategic points automatically shoot pictures that are analysed for shots of tigers—their markings as individual as human fingerprints.

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