As Nepal observed the World Tiger Day-2012, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) unveiled the results of the recent counting on Sunday, which put the numbers of adult wild tigers at 37 in Bardiya National Park and at 10 in Shukla Phata Wildlife Reserve, Kanchanpur.
Although only two new adult tigers have been found in Bardiya since 2009, the number of big cat has doubled in Kanchanpur over the last three years. In 2009, tigers´ numbers were just 18 and eight in Bardiya and Kanchanpur respectively. With altogether 21 tigers found in the new counting conducted early this year by using camera trapping method, the national tiger population is now short of only 74 for Nepal to achieve its 2022 target.
In 2010, when the tiger population was 155, Nepal had set a target to double the number by 2022. However, Maheshwor Dahal, an ecologist at the DNPWC, says, "It´s just a tentative target. We believe our target will be met even if we succeed to increase tiger population to around 250."
More scientific tiger count by 2013
The National Tiger Conservation Committee (NTCC), headed by Prime Minister Baburam Bhattarai, on Sunday instructed the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation (MoFSC) to count tigers in all protected areas simultaneously in the next year. This means that Nepal will have more scientific data about tigers by 2013 end.
As of now, DNPWC has never conducted tiger counts simultaneously in all protected areas. In 2010, when Nepal claimed to have found 155 tigers, the national tiger population was compiled by using the results of previous counts. Even this year, when the new tiger population is believed to have reached 176, the number of recently traced tigers (21) has been added to the 2010 data (155).
"Our tiger counts are not completely scientific till now," says Dahal. "When we add new numbers of tigers found in a certain area, some of the tigers counted in the previous census might have already been killed or dead. In this way, we can never figure out the exact number of tigers."
In November, 2013, DNPWC will count tigers in all national parks, wildlife reserves and some other potential areas simultaneously.
Joint mechanism against environmental crimes
Sagar Shumsher JBR, a retired general of Nepal Army (NA), along with two others, was arrested with an illegal gun allegedly for hunting a deer inside Chitwan National Park (CNP) on June 13, 2012.
This created a sort of confusion between the Chitwan District Administration Office (DAO) and the CNP administration over whether to charge Shumsher with illegally possessing a weapon or killing the deer. As a quasi judicial authority for hearing cases of wildlife crimes, the CNP administration could punish Shumsher for hunting the deer while the Chitwan administration had the rights to try him for possessing the illegal weapon.
This sort of confusion is common because wildlife crimes are often intertwined with criminal activities like those of forgery and possession of drug and illegal weapons. In order to avoid this confusion, NTCC on Sunday also made a policy decision to form an integrated mechanism of several government bodies to combat all types of environmental crimes.
The third meeting of NTCC also decided to increase the amount of compensation given to the families of those killed by tigers and other wild animals. As of now, the families of the victims of wild animals are provided Rs 150,000 in compensation. "It´s a necessary step," says Dahal. "The idea is to reduce conflict between people and tigers. We can´t protect tigers if we don´t address the local community´s concerns."
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