Primacy to tourism affecting tiger habitats: Centre to Rajasthan govt

Citing cases of disappearance of tigers in Rajasthan, the Centre has alleged that tourism has assumed primacy in the state over basic ecological tenets resulting in dispersal of the big cats.

Further, in spite of capacity building of frontline forest personnel, monitoring was not up to the mark and periodically tigers were reported missing, it said.

"Even today, it has been reported that tiger ST-5 is missing and ST-11 was reported dead in spite of intensive monitoring," Union Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Harsh Vardhan said in a recent letter to Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje.

In the letter, he said a two-phased project titled monitoring of re-introduced tigers in the Sariska Tiger Reserve was instituted in joint collaboration with the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), the Wildlife Institute of india (WII) and the state of Rajasthan.

The project was designed with the overreaching objective of monitoring re-introduced tigers and in process develop capacity of frontline forest staff in state-of-the-art monitoring protocols, it said.

"However, over a period of time it is observed that there is heavy dependence for day-to-day monitoring on research personnel of the WII," the letter said.

In addition, there are allegations of mishandling capture of a tiger at the Ranthambore tiger reserve, which allegedly resulted in its death, it said.

It is also alleged that tourism has assumed primacy over basic ecological tenets resulting in altered behaviour and dispersal of tigers, said the letter, a copy of which was received by wildlife activist Ajay Dubey in response to an RTI query filed by him.

There are about 45 big cats in Ranthambore, Sariska and Mukundra Hills tiger reserves of Rajasthan, according to a central government report of 2014.

"As the situation at the Sariska tiger reserve has become grim, I solicit your kind personal intervention in the matter to ensure that Sariska keeps its pride intact," it said.

The Union Minister also said the tiger population has been revived at Sariska in en exemplary way, with active collaboration of the state and the Centre.

"This was a milestone in wild tiger conservation, the first of its kind globally. This active management was based on the commitment from the state for fostering the re-introduced tigers through compliance and protocols from the NTCA," he pointed out.