Tiger tiger - not burning too bright

We Indians have our unique ways of destroying our symbols of pride — from the Taj Mahal changing colour because of pollution, or the national aquatic animal, the Gangetic dolphin, being collateral damage to the National Waterways, or the national animal, the tiger, falling prey to poachers’ deadly guns.

We try to contain the damage mainly to avoid the ire of the international community — but the minute the focus of the world shifts, we are back to being our wayward selves.

The world was in shock when the 2006 Indian tiger census reported an all-time low of 1411 Royal Bengal Tigers (found primarily in India) from an estimated 3,700 tigers in 2002.

We pulled up our socks, and managed to touch 1,706 in 2010 and a whopping 2,226 in 2014 — nearly 70 per cent of the total tiger population in the world.

It was a similar story with the one-horned rhino. After gruesome accounts of poaching, when only 366 individuals remained in the wild in 1966, the pressure of the international wildlife community forced the Indian government to implement more stringent laws against poaching, and up its commitment towards wildlife conservation. As a result of extensive efforts for five decades, we had 2,413 rhinos as of March 2018.

However, once the world spared us the rod, we grew complacent.

According to the response to an RTI filed by Noida-based advocate Ranjan Tomar, the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) conceded that 429 tigers were poached in India between 2008 and 2018 — that is roughly one-fifth of the total tiger population according to the last census.

In the same RTI, it has come to light that 102 rhinos were poached in the very same period.

An Indian rhino lies dead with its horn missing at Kaziranga National Park. (Photo: Reuters).

The WCCB, that falls under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC), has further revealed that maximum tigers were poached in Madhya Pradesh (71), followed by Maharashtra and Karnataka — 46 each, and 42 each in Assam and Chhattisgarh.

In the past, various tiger reserves including Sariska, Buxa, Panna and several others have been in the spotlight for losing all their tigers to poachers. 

The primary purpose of poaching in India is for tiger furs, bones and parts — primarily to be sent to China where they are used in traditional medicine. Rhino horn is also used in traditional Chinese medicine, but increasingly, it is becoming a status symbol to display success and wealth. The main demand for the horns comes from Viet Nam.

Once, this was a living being. The seized head of a poached tiger caught at an airport. (Photo: Reuters).

China invited the wrath of conservationists all over the world when it announced its intention to reverse the 25-year-old ban on using rhinoceros horns and tiger bones in medicines.

The move was in complete contradiction to the commitment that Beijing had made in 1993 after it joined the CITES — when it had banned all use and trading of tiger and rhino parts. It subsequently announced that it was considering revoking the reversing of the ban.

According to the Wildlife Protection Act (1972), tiger and rhinos both are listed under Schedule I, and poaching them attracts a maximum sentence of three years imprisonment or a fine which may extend to Rs. 25,000 — or both. Clearly, that is not a big enough deterrent for the poachers. The illegal wildlife trade is worth USD 19 billion, according to the WWF’s report Fighting illicit wildlife trafficking.

In fact, tiger parts are an entire menu card in itself (2009 estimates):

Source: Laos Emerges as Key Source in Asia’s Illicit Wildlife Trade

From the menu: A Chinese officer holds a package containing crushed tiger bones. (Photo: Reuters).

According to reports, the black market for rhino horn is even more lucrative — the material sells for USD 65,000 per kilogram (approx. INR 46.5 lakh) — making it more expensive than 24-carat gold in India, which is priced at INR 33.4 lakh today.

Endowed with rich biodiversity (amongst the richest in the world), India has a responsibility to conserve this for posterity. Unless the government ups its actions and policies, poaching will continue to remain a high-reward — and low-risk — proposition. 

Also read: Stop the shame, China! The lifting of the ban on using tiger and rhino parts is a call for their extinction