Shockingly blase, forest officials in Panna sit in an office fudging and cooking up tiger figures unconcerned about a reporter looking on. Mihir Srivastava catches them red-handed
Bullet Proof: A disturbing and unusual picture of a tiger with a gun wound

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After the failure of the census to find any trace of tigers at Sariska, attention has focused on the state of the big cat in the other national parks. If government figures are to be relied on there would appear to be no cause for worry. In 1972, when Project Tiger was conceived, census figures put the Indian tiger population at 1,827. By 2002, another such census placed the number at 3,624. But more and more experts have come to believe that the census is completely unreliable. As Tehelka found out in the course of observing a tiger census underway at Panna National Park in Madhya Pradesh, there is good reason for their fears.

The census, conducted over a seven-day period, came up with the figure of 35 tigers – 34 adults and one cub – for the park, showing no change from the last census. However, unlike other national parks, there is a long-term study of tigers, started in 1995, which includes animals that have been radio-collared. In the territory (see map) of a single radio-collared adult male, the forest department claims to have located as many as nine adult males.

Given what is known about the social behaviour of tigers, this is completely impossible, adult tigers do not tolerate other males in their territory. In all likelihood, a single male has been counted nine times over.

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The implausibility of the census is also revealed by the presence of a single cub even though 20 adult females have been observed. When allowance is made for similar fudging with female tigers, it appears that the number of tigers actually present within the park is less than 10. And if this is the manner in which the census is carried out, there is reason to believe experts when they say that the number of tigers today in the wild may actually be back to the levels of 1972, when Project Tiger was initiated.

The census at Panna was ordered following a report of the central empowered committee constituted by the Supreme Court. The committee was constituted after Belinda Wright, executive director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, filed a writ petition alleging that the number of tigers at Panna has fast been declining. The petition is based on work being carried out at Panna by wildlife researcher Raghunandan Singh Chundawat who is a member of the wildlife advisory board of Madhya Pradesh and has been a faculty member at the Wildlife Institute of India.

Nailing the Lie: The two maps above reveal how the forest department seems to have counted a single male tiger nine times over and a single female 13 times over
A site inspection was conducted by the central empowered committee on February 7 and 8 this year. In its report the committee observed that the “tiger population in 2005 appears to have crashed in the park probably due to poaching. An immediate priority will be to estimate the population through camera trap method in order to assess health and visibility.’’ The report then went on to conclude, “Panna is showing signs of Sariska. This note is like an early warning signal. It is necessary to put it right fast before it is too late otherwise the tiger will never recover here.”

There was good reason to believe that poaching in Panna has been widespread over the past few years. There is visual evidence (see photographs) of the remains of a tiger recovered from a trap and of an adult male roaming through the forest with a bullet wound visible on its flanks. Moreover, Chundawat’s study has documented the loss of nine breeding tigers between 2002-2005 out of the

He has also further documented the possible loss of over 21 young adult tigers born in the reserve that are now missing. These observations tie in well with what the census actually seems to show, that the tiger numbers in Panna may well be below 10.

Despite the recommendation of the committee, the census was based on a collection of pug impressions of tigers, a method that even without any mal-intention on the part of the forest department appears to be seriously flawed (see box). The census was carried out from March 18 to 24 under the supervision of Aseem Srivastava, who is the deputy director of Kanha National Park.

Consider how the census was actually carried out. The usual procedure is to mark out several areas usually 2 m by 3 m, called pug impression pads (PIP) where the terrain is suitable for observing the pugmarks. In the course of the census the pugmarks collected from these areas are observed. For this census 2,200 PIPs, four times the number in the last census, were prepared. This by itself should have yielded more pugmarks even if they were from the same tiger, but over this entire period only 31 pugmarks were collected from the PIPs. Unable to make the numbers add up, the census team then went ahead and claimed they had found an additional 30 pugmarks in areas away from the PIPs.

Even so, at 61, the number of pugmarks observed over a seven-day period is shockingly low. “Only 31 pug impressions in 2200 PIPs in a week’s time. This does not indicate 34 healthy tigers in the forest,” asserts Fateh Singh Rathore, former director of the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve and a renowned tiger expert who was also present at Panna during the census. “The whole exercise is a farce, done to show that all is well,” he adds. A reserve with a large tiger population has a very different look, explained Rathore. “One gets to hear frequent tiger calls, pugmarks are in plenty as are their droppings. I get the feel of the forest and its health soon after I enter the forest. There are no such indications here,” says Rathore

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Srivastava, when questioned about the absence of circumstantial evidence, indirectly admits as much, “In my week-long stay and extensive travelling within the park to supervise the census, I did not make a single tiger sighting, neither did I hear a single tiger call.”

Tehelka got in touch with field operators, some of the forest guards and deputy rangers, and they had much to say as long as their identity was kept concealed. “The tracing of pugmarks had already started two days before the actual starting of the census,” revealed a forest guard.

In the Hinota and Panna range of the reserve, the local staff said there were instances in which old plaster of paris pug casts from a previous census were mixed with the new. There were several instances, informed a deputy ranger, when the pugmark tracings were not done on the same day as they were found. This was done to show that different tigers were moving in the same region at different points of time, he explained, while in fact the pugmarks were of the same tiger.

REMAINS OF THE DAY: Incriminating evidence of a tiger savaged by poachers Photo courtesy TRPP
Finally on March 24, the analysis of the findings was carried out in the field director’s office in Panna. Tehelka followed the proceedings. There were clear indications that the numbers were cooked up. In one case, when there was doubt over a pugmark, Srivastava summoned the concerned forest guard who had reportedly seen the tiger before he traced out the pugmark. In fact this was one of the seven tiger sightings reported during the census. The forest guard concerned told Srivastava that he had seen that tiger a year ago, and never since. He was asked to keep silent by his ranger, MK Sharma, who assured Srivastava that the sighting was indeed made, and a noting to this effect was actually made on the tracing sheet. There were at least three occasions when the tracings were not found to match the plaster of paris pug casts, a reason good enough to reject that particular tracing. However, on all these occasions the tracing was redone in the office to match the cast. Some of the casts reportedly made on March 18 and 19, five days before the analysis, were still wet and fresh.

The seriousness of the proceedings can be gauged from the fact that the analysis was over in four hours. With 61 pugmarks, if care has to be taken to avoid duplication, each pugmark should actually be checked against the others. This would amount to over 1800 pugmark comparisons. Even if each comparison took a minute, and the officials did not take a single break, the procedure would stretch for far longer than the four hours it actually took. When Srivastava was questioned about the host of omissions, discrepancies and fabrications, he refused to comment, “ I cannot do anything about the problem of lack of faith.”

Sanjay Mukharya, conservator of forest and field director Panna Tiger Reserve, when asked how he could square the fact that the tiger numbers had not changed even though radio-collared tigers had clearly gone missing, turned around and said, “How do I know about it? It is for Raghunandan Singh Chundawat to tell since he was monitoring the tigers round the clock. He should be asked where they have gone. He has got in touch with everyone but has not written to me about the problem. Show me a single letter he wrote to me about the problem. I was given this report only today informing about the missing collared tigers.”

When told that the report was based on proceedings before the Supreme Court and the findings were those of a committee set up by the highest court in the land, Mukharya just turned around and said, “Belinda Wright’s petition in the Supreme Court does not talk much of the loss of tiger population. It is more concerned about the issues like burning of the forest and other issues.”

Asked about the adverse comment in the report by the central empowered committee set up by the Supreme Court, the conservator of forest and field director of Panna dismissed it summarily saying, “It is an ego war. Chundawat is after my neck. He is an influential man. You can have an idea of his influence by the fact that he has access to the prime minister. He has friends in the Wild Life Board.’’

That was not all. Mukharya then went on to level all sorts of personal allegations against Chundawat all without once denying the reality of the missing radio collared tigers, or the ample evidence for poaching.

It is this denial of facts that Rathore makes it a point to address. “We can work for the solution of the problem only when we recognise its enormity, or else we know what happened in Sariska,” he says.

Chundawat draws attention to an even more important fact. “The issue has now gone beyond tackling localised problems in Sariska or Panna. The same thing seems to be happening across the country. We have to realise the enormity of the crisis and this can only be done when we get a proper estimate of the tiger population. Senior officials in the forest department have to step in and face facts. It is only once this is done that we can consider the steps that we need to take to save the tiger.’