India’s Population Boom Extends to Tigers
When it comes to population growth, no country in the world can match India. Not only is India No. 1 in the world at increasing its human population, it’s also No. 1 at increasing its tiger population. And somehow the humans and tigers are getting along quite well, with fewer conflicts than Republicans and Democrats. A study published recently in the journal Science revealed that India now has about 3,700 tigers, equal to 75% of the world’s wild tiger population. The population of tigers in India more than doubled from 2010 to 2022.
India’s success, according to the study’s authors, can be attributed to ecological restoration, economic initiatives, and political stability, as well as a reverence for tigers that has allowed humans to coexist with them. As part of its tiger conservation strategy, India doesn’t just limit tigers to strictly protected reserves. It also allows them to roam in areas occupied by humans. According to the study, 45% of India’s tiger-occupied landscapes are shared with around 60 million people.
According to Ninad Mungi, assistant professor at Aarhus University in Denmark and co-author of the study, the advantage of this strategy is that the reserves “act as a source of tigers for surrounding areas. And if coexistence no longer works, the reserves provide a fallback option — ensuring that tigers are not at risk of extinction.”
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Compiled and partly written by Indian humorist MELVIN DURAI, author of the novel Bala Takes the Plunge.
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