India now home to 70% of world’s tiger population

The Supreme Court was on Friday informed that India has become home to more than 70 per cent of world’s tiger population which was recorded as 2,967 across 53 tiger reserves, according to a 2018 report.

Additional Solicitor General Aishwarya Bhati, representing the Centre, submitted before a bench of Justices K.M. Joseph and B.V. Nagarathna that a lot of work has been done for the conservation of tigers and increasing their population, and their current numbers stand at 2,967.

As per the National Tiger Conservation Authority, India has become home to more than 70 per cent tiger population in the world. A comprehensive report of All India Tiger Estimation (2018) was released on July 29, 2020. The fourth round of country level tiger status assessment completed in 2018, with findings indicating an increase with a tiger population estimate of 2,967 (lower and upper limits being 2,603 and 3,346 respectively), as compared to the last country level estimation of 2014, with an estimation of 2,226, 2010 estimation with an estimation of 1,706 and 2006 estimation, with an estimate of 1,411.”

India’s world record tiger survey also estimated the population of leopards and the tiger range was found home to 12,852 (12,172-13,535) leopards. They occur in prey rich protected areas as well as multi-use forests.A total of 5,240 adult individual leopards were identified in a total of 51,337 leopard photographs using pattern recognition software. Statistical analysis estimates the leopard population at – 12,800 leopards within the tiger’s range.

The leopard was estimated across forested habitats in tiger range areas of the country but other leopard occupied areas such as non-forested habitats (coffee and tea plantations and other land uses from where leopards are known to occur), higher elevations in the Himalayas, arid landscapes and majority of North East landscape were not sampled and, therefore, the population estimation should be considered as minimum number of leopards in each of the landscapes.

Tiger has not only served as an umbrella species but even its monitoring has helped evaluate the status of other species, like the leopard.