PICTURE SPEAK

Chengappa (far left) with Photo Editor Bandeep Singh (right) at Sariska

I have been to Sariska at least half a dozen times but have never seen a tiger in the wild. I thought it was just my bad luck. Unfortunately, it appears that this was not the case. I read, much to my dismay, that the tigers in Sariska have actually vanished.

In 1993, we did a story on the country's first tiger crisis and the situation has only worsened. This is the first time we have featured the national animal on our cover as the threat to the tiger is very real. According to experts, 750 tiger skins have been seized in the past 10 years. If we assume that for every skin seized, at least one poacher got away, this means India's forests have lost at least 1,500 tigers in the past decade. Even official figures reflect a drop from a peak population of 4,300 in 1989 to 3,500. Meanwhile, the demand for products made from the body parts of the tiger has only risen. The market value of a tiger is reckoned to be Rs 60 lakh.

As tiger numbers have fallen elsewhere in the past 10 years, poachers have turned to India, which has the world's largest tiger population. After initial success with Project Tiger, negligence has set in. Recruitment of guards has fallen, the forest service is badly equipped, there is little political initiative and industrialisation has fragmented the buffer areas around the zones meant for tigers. In contrast, the poacher is now better equipped and well connected.

Our cover story this week reveals how one-third of the Project Tiger reserves have kept losing their tigers. In Manas, for example, the numbers have fallen from 125 tigers in 1997 to 65. This brings the credibility of the annual tiger census and the efficiency of the Indian Forest Service into question. Managing Editor Raj Chengappa, who has reported on wildlife for over 20 years, wrote our cover story this week, with inputs from bureaus. He says, "When I told my daughter about how tigers were captured and slaughtered, it moved her to tears."

I am told no one ever forgets his first sight of a tiger in the wild. If we don't turn back the tide that threatens this magnificent animal, future generations will never even get that chance. Letting a species lapse into extinction is not just a conservationist's nightmare. It is a national shame.

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