Two weeks ago, 17-year-old Binita Pariyar was walking home from school when she was attacked and killed by a tiger. Binita, a talented singer and dancer, loved making TikTok videos and performing for her friends and family. She was ambitious; she wanted to join the army and serve her country. She was also a deeply spiritual young person and dreamed of making a pilgrimage to Shri Kedarnath in India. Binita’s dreams will not be fulfilled now. Binita was the fourth person to be killed by a big cat in Bardiya district that month alone.
Bardiya National Park, Nepal’s largest lowland protected area, is home to an abundance of wildlife including tigers, rhino, elephant and river dolphins. It is a globally renowned conservation success story, winning the prestigious ‘TX2 Conservation Award’ for increasing tiger numbers from 18 in 2009 to 125 in 2022. Nationally, Nepal nearly tripled its tiger population in this timeframe, from 121 to 355, a crowning achievement of the ‘TX2’ (tiger doubling) initiative, implemented through partnerships between the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC).
Yet behind this success story lies another story. One of a community being torn apart by unprecedented human-wildlife conflict, and Nepal’s conservation establishment looking on with apparent calculated indifference.
As tiger numbers rise exponentially in Bardiya, the size of their protected habitat remains the same. Tigers are hungry and competing for territory, and attacks on humans have become a weekly occurrence. With five deaths in January 2026 alone and already 2 deaths in just the first week of February, more than 40 deaths between 2020-2025—Bardiya is at the frontline of the worst human-wildlife conflict disaster in Nepal’s history. In the previous five years (2014-2019), there were only six reported human deaths from tigers in Nepal nationwide.
The people of Bardiya used to be most at risk from tigers when venturing into the park to collect grass and firewood. Now, tigers are entering the villages. Four-year-old Shivam Tharu was attacked while playing in his backyard. 50-year-old Nandakala Thapa was snatched while riding on the back of her son’s motorcycle, her body never recovered. Lily Chaudhary, a single parent of two, was mauled to death by a tiger whilst feeding her pigs outside her home. Ramita Tharu’s husband Dinesh was killed by a tiger whilst searching for mushrooms, leaving her to rear her children alone. When her brother Ramesh went to search for her husband, he was killed by the same tiger.
Living in terror for their lives, the villagers are also losing their livelihoods. Livestock rearing was the primary income source in Bardiya, but as wild animal attacks on people and animals have soared, they have been forced to stop rearing cattle, goats and pigs. Without livestock, villagers have no manure and cannot grow food. Parents are struggling to feed their children, keep them warm through the winter, and cannot be sure they will have safe passage to school.
The Trophy Hunting Hypothesis
As this catastrophe unfolds, one might expect the conservation organizations responsible for Bardiya’s tiger population growth to respond with urgency. Instead, organizations such as DNPWC, WWF, ZSL continue to invest heavily in sophisticated anti-poaching technology, including AI-powered detection systems, aerial surveillance and park-wide communication networks. All of this technology could easily be adapted to protect people, but in Bardiya, it is strictly to protect tigers.
Despite their documented awareness of carrying capacity limits and foreseen conflict, not a single organization has proposed a comprehensive human-wildlife conflict mitigation program for Bardiya. While tiger attacks rise week on week, we must question why the conservation establishment looks on, apparently refusing to deploy their proven solutions, investing in technology that protects tigers but not people, and remaining steadfast to their mission of unsustainable tiger enhancement.
What if this humanitarian disaster was deliberately manufactured to create conditions for introducing trophy hunting to Nepal?
Consider this strategic timeline:
Step 1: Artificially inflate tiger population beyond carrying capacity, with full awareness of inevitable territorial compression and human conflict.
Step 2: Refuse to implement proven conflict mitigation technologies, allowing human casualties to surge and community desperation to peak.
Step 3: Capture ‘problem tigers’ publicly, building the narrative that certain individuals are responsible rather than systematic over-population.
Step 4: Wait for government and communities to reach a crisis point where drastic ‘population management’ becomes socially and politically acceptable.
Step 5: Propose trophy hunting as the solution, generating revenue while ‘humanely’ reducing population density.
The mathematics are compelling: Nepal’s 150+ ‘excess’ tigers in Bardiya-Banke complex, valued at US$50,000-100,000 per trophy hunt, could generate US$15 million in hunting fees—far exceeding current conservation tourism revenue while creating dependence on continued over-population cycles.
Calculated Inaction: The Technology Was Always There
Throughout Nepal, south Asia and the world, these same organizations implement innovative programs specifically reducing deadly encounters between people and predators:
Human-Tiger Coexistence Amidst Rising Tiger Population
WWF’s proven interventions for predator conflict: - Assam, India: AI camera traps with real-time SMS alerts and wireless networks successfully reducing human-elephant conflict - Ladakh: FoxLights and predator-proof corrals protecting pastoral communities from snow leopards - Gorumara National Park: Wildlife fencing and early warning systems reducing human-tiger conflict - Sunderbans (since 1973): Solar-powered systems and rapid response protocols alerting communities to tiger presence
ZSL’s expertise deployed globally—but not in Bardiya: - Their ‘For People, For Wildlife’ programme in Nepal (2019-2024) included community financial resilience, conflict mitigation training, and predator-proof livestock enclosures—but Bardiya’s buffer zone communities, most dependent on forests and bearing the brunt of Nepal’s worst human-wildlife conflict, were excluded - Thailand: Landscape-level interventions addressing root causes of human-elephant conflict - Western Congo Basin and Kenya: Comprehensive community protection from predators including predator-proof enclosures and community-authority dialogue
The ultimate irony: Multiple stakeholders including Global Conservation, ZSL Nepal, Nepal Tiger Trust, and DNPWC invested US$400,000 over five years (2021-2026) to combat poaching in Bardiya. Several more grants and aid were pumped in by other benefactors including the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ) and USAID, handed to organizations like IUCN, NTNC and others. AI-powered detection systems, drones, satellite forest monitoring, SMART patrol equipment, aerial surveillance, park-wide communication networks—all enabling real-time wildlife monitoring.
Every component of this anti-poaching infrastructure could be reconfigured for human safety. Cellular camera traps detecting poachers could alert villagers to approaching tigers via SMS, as in WWF’s Assam program. ‘TrailGuard’ AI identifying poachers could identify tigers near settlements and trigger warnings—technology WWF developed specifically for this purpose. Park-wide communications enabling ranger response could enable community alerting when tigers leave protected areas, the exact application of LoRa networks WWF tested in India.
Yet in Bardiya, this technology is exclusively to protect tigers, not people. Camera traps and daily patrols reveal the danger: “We have some videos where the interval between people walking down a trail and tigers walking down a trail is just two minutes,” a park official told Forbes in 2024.
Even without cutting-edge technology, many lives could have been saved. Low-tech, readily available tools like basic trail cameras and hobby drones would make a huge difference. But for the people of Bardiya, a drone is worth its weight in gold, a pair of laptops unobtainable. The economic and power imbalance is stark: conservation elites deploy sophisticated AI systems to protect tigers, while the people facing daily risk of death cannot afford basic equipment that could save their lives.
Four Tiger Conservation Action Plans—Zero Human Protection
Four TCAPs spanning 2008 to 2027 were implemented by conservation partners, yet measures to empower communities, protect human safety and mitigate inevitable conflict have been startlingly absent. Instead, strategies focused on:
• 180 artificial water sources eliminating natural scarcity
• Aggressive grassland management: burning, mechanical mowing, chemical fertilization creating artificially productive monocultures benefiting only tigers and prey species
Massive habitat manipulation knowing it would force territorial compression
The ecosystem cost: In their pursuit of a single species numerical goal, organizations whose charters commit them to wildlife and habitat protection have degraded Bardiya’s ecosystem, displaced species and reduced biodiversity. Numbers of the critically endangered Bengal Florican have plummeted; indiscriminate grassland burning for tigers may have wiped out this species from Bardiya.
If this were truly about preventing extinction, the Bengal Florican, with fewer than 1,000 individuals globally, would be prioritized over tigers, which number over 4,500 worldwide and are recovering. Yet as Bardiya experiences unprecedented human deaths, organizations continue promoting the narrative of limitless capacity and looming tiger extinction. WWF and partners maintain that Nepal’s carrying capacity for tigers is over 500: “Bardiya can support a large tiger population in its 968km² territory… Adult male Bengal tigers in Nepal can adapt to a home range of 5-20 km²,” according to a statement published in Dialogue Earth.
Ghana S. Gurung, WWF Nepal Country Representative, justified accepting casualties on the false premise of tiger extinction: “But then I think that possibility is - to me, is less risky than not protecting them. Not protecting them, you can lose tigers any time,” he told Montana Public Radio in 2022. This narrative—that human deaths are acceptable to prevent tiger extinction—persists despite tigers recovering globally while truly endangered species like the Bengal Florican are sacrificed to the tiger enhancement program.
The human cost: Between 2008-2019, there were zero deaths from tiger attacks in Bardiya. From 2019 onwards—as tiger numbers saturated habitat—deaths began. By 2021, 10 people killed in nine months. By 2022, 21 people killed in 12 months. The most recent TCAP was finalized (2023-2027) after over 20 Bardiya residents had already died, yet it contained no provisions to protect human lives.
The bitter irony: When park authorities and army struggled during the Maoist insurgency, it was the community that delivered conservation success—Community Based Anti-Poaching Units patrolled, made citizen arrests, and achieved consecutive zero-poaching years while Africa faced wildlife annihilation. Generations sacrificed their youth to these volunteer units, only to now lose family members to the very tigers they protected. These same community structures were then weaponized by conservation elites to suppress voices of suffering and maintain the narrative of success amidst crisis.
Blame the Tigers, Blame the People—Never the System
As casualties mounted, conservation leaders consistently deflected responsibility through victim-blaming rhetoric:
Ghana S. Gurung, WWF Nepal Country Representative, places the burden of adaptation on affected communities while reducing them to economic instruments: “Animal will not change their behaviour as they are wild, whereas we humans need to change our behaviour to live and thrive with wildlife which is one of biggest tourism assets and economic pillars of Nepal,” he told Nepali Times. This singular economic framing—wildlife as assets, people as
economic inputs—lays the groundwork for an even more lucrative commodification: trophy hunting.
He also minimized tiger deaths by comparing them to snakebites in a WWF Nepal statement: “Human-wildlife conflicts with species such as tigers, rhinos and elephants often come to the forefront but there is not enough attention being paid to the conflict with snakes.”
“You should go to the jungle in a group and should not go anytime you like. It is only natural for the tiger to eat you if you visit the jungle alone,” Ram Chandra Kandel, former DNPWC director, told the Centre for Investigative Journalism Nepal.
“Urgent, decisive action to either remove the tiger or encourage local people to change their behaviour to reduce the risk of conflict is important,” says Rabin Kadariya, whilst head of NTNC in Bardiya, in an interview with Dialogue Earth.
Sabita Malla, WWF Nepal Senior Manager, framed human casualties as risks to conservation rather than tragedies demanding intervention: “In the last one year, Bardia witnessed 13 cases of human casualties. If the situation escalates, it can gradually lead to loss of tolerance among local people, and even active removal of tigers through retaliation.”
“When the tigers grow in numbers, they do not just stay inside the jungle. It was a mistake not to think about what to do when the tigers came out, leading to a conflict with humans,” concedes Krishna Acharya, former director of DNPWC, in an interview with the Centre for Investigative Journalism Nepal.
The question that is worth 68 lost lives is: why? If the answer is trophy hunting—if this entire manufactured crisis was designed to overcome Nepal’s resistance to commercializing its endangered species—then accountability must extend beyond negligence to collusion.
WWF’s Trophy Hunting Track Record
WWF has documented history advocating trophy hunting as a ‘conservation tool’, arguing revenue from wealthy hunters funds wildlife protection while managing populations. The organization promotes ‘sustainable use’ frameworks consistently prioritizing hunting revenue over community welfare and maintains partnerships with hunting organizations profiting from wildlife kills.
WWF has controversially supported: - Lion trophy hunting in Tanzania and Namibia - Elephant quotas in Zimbabwe and Botswana despite evidence of corruption, population decline, and minimal community benefit
The evidence against trophy hunting: - Tanzania: Trophy hunting found to be primary driver for steep decline in wild lion and leopard populations - Zimbabwe and Zambia: Lion trophy hunting had negative impacts on population, behavior and broader ecosystem - Snow leopards and other iconic species also declining - A 2021 analysis published in the journal People and Nature found: “In many cases, local communities’ share of the financial benefits is minimal, uncertain and not equitably distributed, while losses to the animals and biodiversity are certain and real, and so is the public resentment and diminished trust”
The Conservation Sector’s Complicity and the Call for Accountability
The trophy hunting signal has already been sent: In 2023, Birendra Mahato, then minister for forests and environment, suggested auctioning tigers to trophy hunters, claiming Nepal could earn $25 million selling hunting licenses, as reported by Animals 24-7. Trophy hunting discussions in closed-door gatherings within conservation agency offices and elite circles are nothing new. A former Director General of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, speaking on condition of anonymity, disclosed to the author that he has confronted sustained lobbying pressure for tiger trophy hunting from top leadership of conservation organizations including NTNC and others.
Young conservationists maintain strategic silence. They understand the crisis, recognize organizational failures, witness preventable deaths, but challenging the dominant establishment means professional exile. Institutional loyalty matters more than scientific integrity. The sector’s complicity has been purchased through grants, fellowships, and career pathways.
The silence permeates: - International organizations say nothing - Conservation biology academics publish no critical analyses - University departments maintain distance - Research proliferates on publishable topics like tiger genetics while studies exposing institutional failure remain absent - Academic gatekeeping protects funders, not truth.
European universities with deep footprints in Bardiya’s management face legitimate collusion questions. Institutions including Wageningen University and other Dutch universities have been deeply involved in Bardiya’s tiger management research and planning. The paradigm they promoted resembles game reserve management for controlled harvesting, not pristine landscape preservation.
Financing agencies like DEFRA and GIZ have not demanded accountability from those who used their aid resources to create this crisis.
Organizations cannot be permitted to create humanitarian disasters as business development strategies. This whole affair requires an immediate judicial probe, as any sector would face when confronted with signs of potential voluntary manslaughter. If the trophy hunting hypothesis proves correct, conservation biology itself becomes an accomplice: a discipline that orchestrated calculated harm rather than prevented it.
Timeline of Manufacturing a Crisis
2009: Bardiya has 18 tigers. Enhancement program begins without community consultation. Between 2008-2019, zero deaths from tiger attacks in Bardiya.
2018: Tiger population increases five-fold to 87. Organizations celebrate success.
2019: Saturated habitat forces dispersal into buffer zones. Human deaths begin.
2021: 10 people killed in nine months. Dramatic escalation acknowledged by park authorities.
2022: 21 people killed in 12 months. Nepal receives prestigious ‘TX2 Conservation Award.’ Park authorities acknowledge need for ‘five-year strategy’ (still not implemented). People protest, police open fire, 18-year-old Nabina Chaudhary fatally shot.
2023: Minister suggests auctioning tigers to trophy hunters.
2024: 36 tiger-induced deaths recorded since 2019 in Bardia alone (compared to 6 deaths nationwide in preceding five years).
2026: Four deaths in one month. Communities at breaking point. People call for tigers to be killed.
Conclusion
There should be no surprise when the conservation establishment begins openly discussing trophy hunting of tigers and leopards in Nepal. The groundwork has been laid meticulously: tiger population artificially inflated to unsustainable density, humanitarian crisis manufactured through calculated inaction, community pushed to desperate tipping point, ‘problem animal’ narrative establishing precedent for lethal management.
The proposal, when it comes, will be dressed in humanitarian language: addressing community concerns through scientifically managed population reduction, generating revenue for conservation and compensation. It will cite precedents from Africa, reference sustainable use frameworks from CITES, and emphasize how trophy hunting revenue could fund the very conflict mitigation programs organizations have refused to implement.
The suspected deliberate manufacturing of a humanitarian crisis to justify commercializing wildlife represents a profound moral and criminal transgression that transcends conservation debates entirely.
Neither the people nor wildlife of Bardiya would benefit from trophy hunting. Communities were neither consulted about nor consented to an intervention placing their lives at risk. Now they have lost lives and livelihoods, facing a future defined by conservation colonialism. Trophy hunting will generate profits for the elite, to the detriment of marginalized communities who have lived here for centuries.
When a field loses its moral compass so completely that it celebrates achievements built on human corpses, when it manufactures crises to serve institutional agendas, when it silences dissent and rewards complicity, it forfeits any claim to legitimacy.
Conservation—the idea and the practice—has never been without controversy. In many areas and contexts, it has been critiqued as colonial, unethical and inequitable. With rising demand for the decolonization of the practice, conservation struggles to maintain its relevance and legitimacy in today’s world. On the pretext of addressing extinction, the conservation sector has been allowed to grow rife with unaccountability, irresponsibility, and unanswerable conduct: the perfect criminogenic cocktail.
The criminogenesis increasingly apparent within conservation practice might just be its tipping point, ending its relevance altogether. Bardiya is a clear example of one such catastrophe, whose creators still proudly hail as a success.
Has conservation become less about stewarding nature’s balance for collective benefit, and more about enabling elite exploitation of it, commodifying both wildlife and human lives for profit? The pattern is clear: putting a price on everything—tiger lives and human lives alike—with that value reflecting only what the wealthy elite think playing with those lives is worth. The question is no longer whether conservation can reform itself, but whether it deserves to survive, in its current form, at all.
The author is a humanitarian and conservationist, Founder and Executive Director of the Burhan Community Regeneration and Conservation Foundation, which works in Bardiya to make conservation accountable to local communities. He previously served as South Asia representative to Dr Jane Goodall and is the founder of the Initiative for the Agency of Community over Conservation (IACC). He can be reached at scilab25@gmail.com
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