553 tiger deaths from 2012-2017; 22.1 pc of poaching

Out of 553 tiger deaths from 2012-2017, over 22 per cent were due to poaching, the Rajya Sabha was informed today.
Union Minister of State for Environment, Forest and Climate Change Mahesh Sharma, in a written reply to a question, also said that more than 15 per cent of the deaths were related to seizures.
"Out of 553 tiger deaths from 2012 to 2017, 22.1 per cent were due to poaching while 15.4 per cent were seizures. 62.4 per cent deaths were attributed to natural causes not attributable to poaching," he said.
In his reply, the minister also enunciated the measures taken by the Union government and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to check the causes of unnatural deaths of tigers in the country, which include using information technology for improved surveillance, and advising states for combing forest floor to check for snares or traps.

"Tiger deaths have to be viewed vis-a-vis recruitment of cubs, annual growth rate of the species, number of adult breedable females dying, besides targeted versus non-targeted poaching. Invoking all these factors, the tiger population in India is ecologically stable," he said in the reply.