Why tiger population up by 30 per cent is a cause to worry

Two thousand two hundred and twenty six adult, roaring, fabulous tigers. The government of India released the All India Tiger Estimation today, the official tiger numbers in India. After two years of data collection, 1,540 tiger selfies captured by 9,735 forest cameras, genetic sampling of tiger poop, and modelling exercises, we have a 30 per cent increase in tiger numbers from the last tiger estimation in 2010. From 1,706 tigers, we now have 2,226. If 1,706 was a not-quite-there figure (we have 3 lakh square kilometres of suitable tiger habitat, by conservative estimates, which is a lot more feline potential), we can now take solace that we have 70 percent of the world's tigers. We can feel good about this meticulously made estimation report. But, it's not really this one that needs our attention. Instead, a second report released today, identifying corridors between tiger reserves, is what needs action. And it's probably the one no one will read.

We have tigers. We can also say we have a decent number of tigers. And yet, here is a reality. We don't know what to do with our tigers. Read that line again, and I'll qualify the statement: We don't know what to do with many of our tigers.

"Connecting Tiger Populations" was also released today, and identifies living, biological corridors which tigers walk in to establish individual territories. While such efforts have been made before, this is the first integrated one, and by far the most comprehensive. And here is reality number two: without these corridors, India can never have more tiger numbers, and that beady 2,000 figure (2,226 is the average of the minimum and maximum figures of 1,945 to 2,491) will always remain.

Tigers, being top predators - also solitary predators, need tiger space. Consider it emblematic of the animal itself: the cub's initiation into the adult world is by leaving its mother, and finding, and holding its territory.

The lines on these territories are drawn in blood. Gushing blood, and tiger claws: Tigers fight other brethren to defend their territories. In reserves with many tigers, several have fallen to their death in defending their land.

Also, to find their land or territory, tigers walk. And boy, do they walk. From Pilibhit to the state capital of Lucknow, from Ranthambhore to the bird sanctuary of Bharatpur, the only things that limit tigers is our own imagination. Up to this point, we have a number of tiger reserves. Equally, there is no future but death for many tigers from reserves which have healthy numbers of tigers, if we don't have a connected network of reserves.

The third reality: land constraints probably mean we cannot have many more tiger reserves, or hundreds of kilometres more of tiger reserves. Perhaps the last solution, for 2015, is to have connections between existing tiger reserves.

Today, awards for the best tiger reserves were given out by environment minister Prakash Javadekar. Instead, I would ask the government to give out awards and honours for the best tiger corridor, and the best protection by a state, or a community of a tiger area which is not officially protected in land record.

For the first time today we have a comprehensive atlas which is a human footprint and a tiger footprint. Nearly 250 maps have been created, superimposing roads, forests, bottlenecks created by roads or railway lines, mapping the growing number of human influences (houses, clearing forests etc). Some of the maps show corridors hanging by a thread, and some of them, like corridors in the central Indian landscape, are corridors with far more health and vitality.

On a wish-list is connecting Ranthambhore in Rajasthan to Kuno in Madhya Pradesh, and strengthening others from Kaziranga to Karbi Anglong in Assam, and Kerala to Goa. This will mean simple things like afforestation or restoration in areas where forests have become corridors, and then become fragments of forests. This will also mean difficult things like identifying places in corridors which cannot support any more land alteration; where roads will have to be diverted and thresholds have to be set for mining. The tools will not be in setting bans but in finding balances.

If our tiger reserves are dots on a map or boxes on our budgeting tables, then tigers have capably smeared the dots and smashed the boxes. The question is whether we can get our thinking out of our boxes.