Indian Tiger Park Now Tiger-Free

Panna National Park is now officially tiger free making it the second Indian tiger sanctuary to no longer have a tiger population. A census was conducted in the park, after authorities reported no Bengal Tiger sightings for a long time. Three years ago the park had a population of 24 tigers; however, none were found this year. Forest minister Rajendra Shukla is optimistic about the news and says, "Panna is our only park which has lost on this count. Three of state's reserve forests — Kanha, Bandhavgarh and Pench — have been adjudged among the best managed tiger reserves in the country."

Comments

What the fuck

[darkitecture]

Your number one priority in a Tiger Park is... to maintain the tiger population. How the fuck do you let 24 tigers die in 36 months? Am I the only one that thinks that maybe after the first 12 months someone should have said, "wait a minute, we've got less tigers now than 12 months ago" and tried to figure out what the fuck was going wrong? How the fuck do you not notice anything is wrong in three years? Surely 24 tigers did not die in the past few months, right?

Maybe I'm assuming too much; I was sick the day they taught tiger maintenance at tiger school.

Re:What the fuck

[erroneus]

Poaching. Pure and simple. And these governments simply don't set their priorities on conserving endangered species. First they tend to enrich themselves, next they enrich their friends and associates, and if they EVER get done serving their own interests, the rest of what's left over goes to the people. They probably have no idea of what a budget committee is and no public involvement.

Re:What the fuck

[RsG]

Poaching. Pure and simple. And these governments simply don't set their priorities on conserving endangered species.

In addition to this, maintaining any kind of boundary around a tiger preserve is going to be a costly, manpower intensive operation. Likely the park didn't get that kind of staff or budget, and left the gate open, so to speak.

Tigers are large. They're territorial apex predators. Each adult male needs lots and lots of room to himself, which means a park of a couple dozen is going to cover a wide territory. Plus, I doubt the park was at capacity with 24, so it probably was set aside with more room than the bare minimum for its now departed population.

As a result, the park's borders are going to be long. Unless they have scads of park rangers, or whatever they're called in this case, they can't police the entirety of it. A poacher could get in unopposed. And given the rarity of the cats, poaching them is probably lucrative enough that they can bribe the, at most, one or two officials who might see them to look the other way.

Electronic tracking?

[lyinhart]

They weren't tracking these things electronically? The technology to track animals has existed for years and surely they would have access to electronic tags and GPS tracking devices.

Duh

[Anonymous Coward]

Humans are destroying everything natural in this world. I just hope we destory things faster so that the Earth can wipe us out and then start over with some newer species that will hopefully not rip the planet apart the way we do. The way we handle everything natural (trees, animals, air, water, soil), we deserve to be added to the list of species that have gone extinct.

What's really amusing is watching people try to rationalize why they deserve to exist. Right, because the species that chooses to force animals to mate in cages in order to be mass-slaughtered for food and clothing, the species that tears down forests to clear space for agrigulture and cities, the species whose members will literally do anything to "get ahead" of their neighbour in terms of money and power, the species who does nothing more than crave constant entertainment and shoveling their faces with as much food as they can get their fat hands on... yes, surely this is the species that deserves to dominate the planet.

Of course, the most disgusting and saddening thing is that almost all people don't see anything wrong with us as a species. That somehow since we're just flesh and blood, everything we do is "natural". Yeah ok. Go back to drinking your Coke or Pepsi. It has absolutely no benefit to your body. But do it anyway, because it tastes good. That's all that matters.

Bribes.

[mail2345]

The manager lets the poacher hunt the tigers for their own reasons, and gets a chunk of the profit. Everyone is happy except the conservationists and the tigers.

Re:Bribes.

[freedom_india]

Sadly that could be true.
Unlike cops in countries like UK and USA, Indian cops don't get paid that much. Neither do they have great insurance coverages: a measly $2,500 is paid to their family if they are killed. Add to that weapons that are antiquated even by 1940s standards. So, you have deadly combination of corruption.
Why would any fool throw away his life for a miserable tiger? So that his family suffers?
No. It would be far better to make sure he's alive & safe & rich. So a tiger gets killed: so what?

cost benefit analysis

[TiggertheMad]

The reason the poachers are bold is because nobody has done the math. 6 billion monkeys on the planet = common. ~3k tigers left on the planet = rare. Perhaps they should start demonstrating that they value tigers more than monkeys.

Start guarding the park. anyone found inside for any reason without evidence of poaching will be killed on sight. People found poaching will be horribly public tortured for a month and then executed. Put severed heads on stakes around the borders of the park. Anyone found with tiger parts in the country will be immediately executed. Quite simply, they need to make entering the park seem like a automatic death sentence. Until they show a will to go farther than the poachers, they will lose and tigers will die.

Re:cost benefit analysis

[JosKarith]

No. What they should do is take all their weapons off them, then let them into the tiger park. Anyone who manages to kill and drag back a tiger bare-handed damn well deserves it, everyone else can be a play toy for teh big kitties...