I didn’t learn it easily
that Tiger is safe in nature but safer under human care. We won’t let tiger go
extinct!
A
little less than forty years back I may have listened to my heart and said that
I want only ‘the best’; a species must be conserved ‘only’ in its natural
habitat. That was because of the young and immature student of animal sciences
in me then.
While
working with crocodiles I learnt to recognize their warning when they do not
like human presence. One of the lessons I have had from sixteen years’ work
later in Similipal is that in a well monitored project a species gives messages
to managers when all is not well in nature and there is the need for change in
management strategy. One such message is the preponderance of tiger in colour
other than the normal yellow body with black stripes.
In
one of my earlier blogs I mentioned about tiger in different colours. It took
nearly six years to go through the happenings and literature for making some
guiding inferences about the occurrence and significance of colour variations.
It all started in 1993 from Similipal with Salku of village Podagad who in
defense of his father and himself killed a tiger that was discovered to be
melanistic. The research that flagged off from Podagad culminated for that time
in Florida, USA in 1999. Dr
Josip Marcan read about my colour-study and provided photographs of tiger in
different colours. These photographs were God-sent for me as they fitted well to
fill up some of the gaps hypothesized in the colour distribution curve from my
study.
From
those days, with gaps though, an academic link has developed with Dr Marcan. I
get the opportunity of studying more tiger photographs sent to me. Out of
around 4500 captive tigers in the USA, the Marcan Tiger Preserve owns one of the
attractive collections that educates and offer more direct interactions of the
public to gain support for Tiger conservation.
A
few weeks back Dr Marcan wanted my reflections about captive breeding of tiger.
My reply is essentially the same after my lessons from the wild. A lot of work
has been done in India and worldwide to keep Tiger safe in nature. Yet, the lesson is, tiger
needs a simultaneous safer life and abode under human care. Safaris in India
and Preserves overseas are supporting answers to large ‘Tiger Reserves’ and
prevent Panthera tigris becoming
extinct. The approach offers scope to recognize and care for each tiger
individually. No mathematical tiger!.
Back
in 2006 and 2008 in my lectures to audience in Nandankanan Biological Park on tiger conservation and future of tiger, I was
emphatic, not because I was speaking at NKBP but because of my rugged lessons
that NKBP will prove to be an important place for a more secured future for
tiger. Tiger in captivity will serve more direct and intense purposes of
education, research, species conservation and visitor-satisfaction of sighting
the tiger.
People
all over the world want tiger to survive so that they are able to see the graceful
king of the forests. The destination in the minds of people who love and care
for wild animals is to see a Tiger.
But
Tiger is an elusive animal. It has survived the wrath of total onslaught by
humans for its quality of being elusive. Only occasionally the ‘Tiger obliges a
glimpse of him’ in the forest. That is the common experience of old and serious
tiger-spotters. People who have lived with families for generations in the
forests that ‘abounded’ with tiger complement the statement of spotters by
saying, ‘before we see the tiger once he must have seen us a hundred times and
gone on its own way; we are not scared of the Tiger’!
Tiger
have survived where wilderness continues to exist. As a result of conservation
strategies some of the best remaining forests are termed Tiger Reserves. Yet,
sighting a tiger on its own is becoming a rarer event day by day, or night by
night.
Tiger
in the wild continue to be a part of increasing biodiversity crisis due to
expanding human population, fragmentation of forests, qualitative degradation
of the integrity of wild habitats, and splitting up of tiger populations into
smaller groups thwarting their genetic health and prevention of extinction.
Tiger habitats need to be maintained inviolate. That is becoming difficult in
spite of awareness and concern.
Tiger
Reserves meant for conserving the tiger and its ecological associates in
natural habitats may be the best places for tiger to live, but they cannot
satiate the inner urge of a common man, a child, a young student for ‘sighting
a tiger’, and to offer scope for study by serious students of morphology,
biology and behavior. If all these are allowed to all the people of the globe
the original home of tiger cannot remain inviolate and life of tiger in nature
will become shorter still.
A
better and contemporary option is integrating management in the wild as well as
in safaris, preserves and captivity. Semi-captive and captive populations are
insurance to survival of tiger as a species.
Planned
management for captive breeding can ensure an additional and better chance for
Tiger to survive beyond the twenty first century. In environmentally enriched
captive breeding programme…..
- Tiger is safer as a
species (Panthera tigris).
- Tiger is maintained
in its morphological diversity.
- Offers the scope for
viewing and ‘feeling’ Tigers for education and research purposes.
- Educate
‘tiger-oriented’ enthusiasts and tourists and help for relieving pressure
on wild populations, wherever they may be.
Therefore, every decision for sending a critically endangered species to wild from the safety and future under human care need to be well justified.
