This is the first time such a high number of tigers have been reported missing from Ranthambore in a single year.
NEWS From Ranthambore National Park
#NEWS From Ranthambore National Park: As many as 25 big cats out of 75 tigers in Ranthambore National Park (RNP) have vanished during the last one year, Rajasthan’s Chief Wildlife Warden Pavan Kumar Upadhyay reported on Monday (5th November 2024).
This is the first time that such a large number of #tigers had gone missing officially in a year. Earlier, 13 tigers were reportedly missing from Ranthambore between January 2019 and January 2022.
On November 5, 2024, the #wildlife department constituted a three-member committee to probe into the disappearance. The team shall analyze the monitoring record and recommend action if any laxity by park officials is found.
It has been tasked with locating 14 tigers that were last sighted between May 17 and September 30 this year.
An official order on November 4 said repeated reports of missing tigers have cropped up from the monitoring assessments in Ranthambore.
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Despite several notices sent to the field director of the #park, no significant improvements have been noted. In a report dated October 14, 2024 it has been said that 11 tigers remain unaccounted for over one year and there is limited recent evidence for another 14. Given the circumstances, the order said, “an inquiry committee has been set up to investigate the missing tigers in Ranthambore.”
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Monitoring gaps identified
Chief Wildlife Warden Pavan Kumar Upadhyay said, “The committee will submit its report within two months. We have identified certain monitoring gaps that we want to address. Recently, I started collecting weekly monitoring reports which showed these tigers were not recorded on trap camera. The matter is being taken very seriously.
Attempts to relieve the pressure on the park involve the relocation of villages from the buffer zone, but the process has been painfully slow, with the last one in 2016.
Park officials have said Ranthambore faces challenges because tigers have become overcrowded, fighting for their territory. With 75 tigers-that includes young tigers and cubs-the park of 900 square kilometres is finding it difficult to support them.
According to the study conducted by the Wildlife Institute of India during 2006-2014, approximately 40 grown-up tigers can safely be accommodated in the park.
The vanishing act of so many tigers from Ranthambore signals a few fundamental issues, coupled with some factors that might be revitalizing such a trend, which are as follows:
- Overcrowding and Territorial Conflicts: With around 75 tigers in an habitat meant for about 40 adults, there is no doubt that competition for space and resources runs high. Territorial disputes can result in fights, injuries, or even fatalities since tigers are highly territorial.
- Monitoring Gaps: Monitoring challenges are reflected in inconsistent tracking and gaps in data. For the first time, all the weekly monitoring reports that have come in point to earlier observations that some tigers had not been captured by cameras placed as traps, raising suspicions of either surveillance gaps or inefficient tracking methods.
- Strain on Resources: The tigers may over-exploit the prey and water resources within the park due to overpopulation. The tigers that cannot get enough food may go further and raise their vulnerability to poaching, accidents, or conflicts with humans in the process of approaching nearer to human concentrations.
- Insufficient Village Relocation and Habitat Expansion: All relocations of villages around the parks for the extension of buffer zones stalled after 2016. The implication is that the buffer areas in which tigers can disperse safely remain narrow, while congestion in the core areas is increasingly severe.
- Threats Due to Possible Poaching: While poaching has not been directly mentioned in this report, tigers have nonetheless been fast disappearing. Tigers wandering outside park boundaries either due to territory or prey could very easily become targets for poaching.
- Issues in Management and Accountability: No apparent action has yet been observed, despite repeated notices being issued to the field director. This suggests lapses in accountability and management at Ranthambore, which are very likely to come under scrutiny by the inquiry committee.
- Lack of Coordination and Proactive Intervention: Non-occurrence of periodic monitoring reviews and timely action upon detection of missing tigers has been one of the major drawbacks. In the absence of proactive measures, such issues remain undetected for several months and thus interventions are delayed, which might be one of the causes of losses.
These factors shall be investigated by the newly formed committee that shall propose corrective action. There is a dire need to address the issues of overcrowding and expanding tiger habitats, improvement of monitoring systems, and ensuring accountability for preventing further losses.