Despite an expenditure of a little over Rs 10 crore in the last five years by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), over 40 per cent of the tigers in Simlipal Tiger Reserve seems to have vanished.

The Orissa government, which spent last year denying the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) census figure of 21 big cats in the wildlife sanctuary, did its own census in January this year. The result: only 61 big cats (16 males, 31 females, 14 cubs) were found in the sanctuary, which spans 2,301 sq km. The 2004 census had put the figure at 101. All this has happened after the NTCA spent Rs 10.41 crore on Simlipal between 2004 and 2009. While the NTCA money was spent on the tiger reserve, the state government paid salaries to the staff of the reserve, including forest guards, rangers and field director.

In January this year, 81 counting teams comprising officials of four forest divisions, staff of Simlipal sanctuary and teachers/students of North Orissa University fanned out in the tiger reserve for an elaborate census as part of the state government's move to negate the WII census. Orissa Chief Wildlife Warden B K Patnaik, who sent the report to the state Forest and Environment Department a fortnight ago, said the numbers were quite low, but not “below normal”.

Patnaik himself seemed bewildered by the new census, saying it would be difficult to reconcile census figures of WII and tiger reserve’s own. “It is now up to the Forest and Environment Department to accept one of the figures,” he said.

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