‘India best hope for tiger conservation’

‘India best hope for tiger conservation’

Considered one of the founding fathers of wildlife conservation, Dr George Beals Schaller from USA feels that India is the only hope for future tiger conservation. He believes that by the next decade, the number of tigers in India could go up by 50%. Though there is a considerable tiger population in Sumatra, Nepal, Thailand and Malaysia, Indian tiger reserves seem to be the best habitat for tigers in terms of the future.

In an interview with Deccan Chronicle on Tuesday in Bengaluru, 78-year-old Dr Schaller felt that the Indian government is not doing enough to improve the protection facilities and conservation practices in tiger reserves. “There is a need for a national will to protect the tigers in India. An integrated effort involving foresters and local community, is a must to protect the tigers from people and poachers.” Dr Schaller also pointed out that demand for meat and skin from the Chinese medicine-making sector haunts the Indian forests, where poachers are eyeing the big cats. “The lion population in Africa is in a steep decline. The lion bones are now being passed off as tiger bones in the Chinese market. I am holding talks with monasteries in China and through the religious leaders we are hoping to bring about a change in the mindset of the Chinese to leave the wild animals, especially the wild cats, alone”

During the 1970s, Dr Schaller worked with gorillas in South Africa. He spent his later years in China and Tibet, researching the pandas and wild yaks. The wild cats being his prime area of interest, Dr Schaller has inspired tiger conservationists such as Dr Ullas Karanth in India. Dr Schaller suggested that the governments work seriously to solve the human-animal conflict. “Why do tigers hunt cattle? When the forest prey declines the tigers are left with no choice but to venture outside the forest to eat, he said.