Context: The population of species like spotted deer, sambar, and gaur, which are the prey base for Tigers, are declining in certain states like Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh. This decline in their population is a matter of concern for tigers and for wildlife conservation as a whole.
Relevance of the topic:
Prelims: Key facts about Tiger.
Mains: Conservation of keystone species: Significance and challenges.
Recent assessment report by NTCA: Key Issues:
The National Tiger Conservation Authority and the Wildlife Institute of India has recently prepared the assessment report, which shows:
- Declining prey base: For the first time, a detailed assessment of the status of ungulates (hoofed mammals), including deer, pigs, antelopes, and bison, has estimated their abundance across India. However, their populations are declining in east-central India in Odisha, Jharkhand, and Chhattisgarh.
- Uneven distribution of prey-base: The core tiger prey species are abundant, especially within tiger reserves and national parks, but not so much in sanctuaries that receive a comparatively lower level of protection, and even less in forest divisions.
- Habitat fragmentation & inbreeding: Small and isolated populations of species such as barasingha, wild buffalo, pygmy hog, and hog deer, specially in Himalayan states, poses bottlenecks in their genetic diversity as habitat fragmentation prevents the intermixing of different animals.
- Decline in species due to habitat destruction: Species with narrow ecological preferences like, populations of hog deer which live in grasslands and floodplains, have significantly declined due to the destruction and fragmentation of their preferred wetlands and swamp habitats. Their current distribution is confined to isolated patches in Terai grasslands and floodplains of Ganga and Brahmaputra.
The signs of prey decline and low density of ungulates are due to severe habitat degradation, infrastructure development projects and mining that fragments forests, left-wing extremism (central India), and subsistence hunting by residents.
Consequences of the fall in population of Ungulates:
- Impacts health of Tigers: Ungulates form the core prey base of tigers and other large predators. The lack of prey base is a double whammy for tigers, impacting the existing tiger occupancy and forcing them to kill livestock and smaller species.
- Disrupts ecological balance: The animals help regulate forests and soil health with their feeding habits. A fall in their numbers affects the ecological balance of forests both inside and outside tiger reserves.
- Increase in Man-Wildlife conflict: Due to the fallout of the prey base, tigers move beyond the reserves to hunt livestock, putting them in closer contact with humans, who kill tigers in retaliation for livestock depredation.
The report prescribes augmenting prey populations through on-site breeding in enclosures to protect them from predators.
Also Read: Translocation of African Cheetahs: Neither Ecologically Sustainable nor Ethical
Key Facts about Tiger
- Tiger is an umbrella species. Its conservation automatically ensures the conversation of a large number of flora and fauna and entire ecosystems.
- India is home to 75% of the global tiger population.
- The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) conducts a tiger census across India every 4 years.
- As per the latest Tiger Census Report (2022), India has 3682 tigers. (2967 in 2018)
- Madhya Pradesh has the highest number of tigers (785) in India, followed by Karnataka (563) and Uttarakhand (560).
- Conservation status:
- IUCN Red List: Endangered
- Wildlife Protection Act: Schedule 1
- CITES: Appendix 1
Read More: List of Tiger Reserves in India