Indian wildlife sanctuary, information data and its condition

[Shardul]

(08-20-2015, 08:39 AM)GuateGojira Wrote: @Pckts is right, there is not plenty of prey out there (apart from the domestic cattle) and believe it or not, poaching is not the greatest problem, is habitat loss and lack of prey. That has been the first problem, even Dr Karanth states that if the tiger populations were enough large, there will be possible for them to sustain some looses caused by poaching, but sadly there is not a single tiger population in India with at least 200 breeding adults. Sunquist et al. (1999) states also that it was the kill of the prey and the destruction of the habitat what really killed the Caspian and the Javanese tigers. Poaching is a terrible problem that most be eradicated, but the poaching of the tiger's prey can be even more deadlier for them.

The territory of a tiger depends of the prey density, that is true, but it also have an absolute number when no more tiger can live in an area. During the studies in Chitwan, there were no cases of man-eaters and intra-especific fights were uncommon until the beginning of the 80's. It seems that in that moment, the space available in the park was full, and the young ones could not manage to live there anymore. Fights arouse and the injured and/or old became in man-eaters. Dr Chundawat stated the same problem in Panna, when the low prey base don't allowed more tigers in the area. Kaziranga, despite its high prey density, is suffering this same problem right now, because tigers have a lower limit about how small a territory can be.

Other thing, who have told you that a dispersing tiger can travel safely trough India? This country is heavily populated and is practically no corner that is not populated by a human settlement, even the national "parks" and "reserves" suffer this. The case of most of the young tigers that travel outside of the parks and reserves is that are killed by poachers, by the same villagers or simple starve to death.

@"Jett" the map that I posted is not fake, you don't even read what I explained before. Those red dots indicate known tiger populations and the entire area are parks or reserves. What I clearly explained was also that those red dots don't explain the DENSITY of each one, so one little red dot in India can have more tigers than the large dots in Burma and Sumatra, for example. Also, there are large areas of forest in India, but they are empty now, a similar case is seen in Cambodia and Laos, where large forest areas are empty of any animal, caused by the human conflicts in the area.

Also, you have misunderstood the words of Dr Karanth. He say that the tiger recovery is possible, but like the says in his book "The Way of the tiger", that "potential habitat" areas most be prepared for tigers first. It most have plenty of wild prey and few humans as possible, only in that way there will be possible to breed tigers. But face it, there are very few areas in India with those characteristics. Can India support 10,000 tigers? Possible, but first those thousands of kilometers of forest most be ideal for tigers, if not, there will be another loss. Pckts show it very well with the problem of the roads, even in the well protected areas like the Western Ghats landscape, were Dr Karanth work.

About the problems with the nilgai and the wild boar, is like Pckts say, those are animals that learned to live near human settlements, but if a tiger go there in order to hunt them, the sure thing is that it will enter in conflict with the humans sooner or late, and like Dr Karanth say in an article of 2014: the tiger will be the sure looser in this fight.

If the situation of the forest of India were so "good" like you describe, don't you think that the table posted by Sanjay (in the first post of this topic) would not exist? In that case, tiger protectors like Belinda Wright, Valmik Thapar, Ullas Karanth and many other, will not be fighting for the few space available that is still capable of having tigers.

Instead of national "pride", we most have a more holistic point of view, about what is the reality of the forests and what solutions can be made.

It's not about national pride @GuateGojira, otherwise I wouldn't have spoken about poaching. It's about lack of knowledge regarding the ground situation in India.

You cannot judge a country's efforts without understanding it's problems. Russia with the second largest land area in the world and a miniscule population should have a 100,000 tigers. But it doesn't. In fact, it only has 400. OTOH, India is the opposite. With a huge population, a lot of which is poor, and a relatively smaller area, it shouldn't hold any wildlife. But it does. Most of Asia has lost its wildlife, but not India. All other Asian nations are in a better position to conserve their animals than India, but they don't. India still holds the largest population of tigers, elephants, rhinos, gaurs, deers, birds, the only population of the Asian lion and numerous other creatures. No other country would displace people from their homes to make space for tigers, but India. India has more lions than Russia has tigers. And you are telling me that India should learn from Russia?

Those conservationists you are talking about are only speaking because they know India is the only country that has demonstrated the will to protect its wildlife, and has a history of doing so, often at the cost of people. Any other country in India's place would have let go of its wildlife long time back. Why don't conservationists speak about China? Because they know China doesn't give a damn.
You have no idea how many human wildlife conflicts happen all around India. Most of it isn't even reported. Yet, the Indian people show a lot of restraint and don't go around killing animals in retaliation. But you only hear about the ones where people do retaliate. Elephants go on a rampage killing people, destroying their homes, their crops, yet the people don't kill them. They just try to shoo them away. Tigers like T-24 are given the longest rope possible. In any other country, he would have been shot a long time ago.
Now, your point regarding empty forests. It's true in some areas, especially the Naxal infested ones, but not all. The thing is, India is not homogenous. Some areas are very well managed, some are poor. That map looks fake. And true data regarding Indian forests is only available with the forest department, because they are the ones who have access to all areas.  But one thing is for sure, lack of prey is not the biggest threat to the tiger's survival, nor is habitat destruction. They might be long term concerns, but definitely not immediate, that is poaching. Till recently, most of India's reserves were not carrying tigers to their full capacity because of poaching. Once a reserve reaches its carrying capacity, the extra animals disperse, trying to find new homes. Now with increased protection, we have seen tigers travelling to places using routes no one expected them to. But once they move out of the reserve, they have no protection. They are ripe targets for poachers, who happen to be very smart people that have a deep knowledge of the forests and animal behaviour.

As you said, a large enough population can sustain some poaching losses. but how will the population become large if poaching isn't contained? Reply