A Realistic View Of Tiger Deaths

Determining absolute tiger numbers is contentious, but the reported death of 166 tigers during 2025, 40 more than the previous year, has caused understandable anguish among wildlife lovers. The big cats are poster heroes of India’s wildlife story, with an official count of 3,167 tigers during the last census of 2021-22. For context, there were an estimated 1,411 cats in 2006 and 2,967 in 2018. Unnatural mortality of these marquee animals should cause worry, warranting detailed investigation of the causes. The present discussion on tiger deaths comes at an appropriate moment, since a fresh census is just getting underway this year. Even allowing for scientific disagreements on the method of censusing tigers and the cull-versus-relocate management approach towards problem animals, such as maneaters, there appears to be a consensus that many tiger sanctuaries are confronted with overcapacity. This is attributed partly to habitat manipulation, through practices such as the creation of waterholes that artificially boost deer and other prey populations and grasslands that support higher prey and tiger numbers. Conflicts among territory-seeking tigers in crowded natural parks kill a few cats, and others perish due to infrastructure projects and road building, as in Central India. Some fall victim to poaching, while others die in traps set for smaller animals like wild boar. Expanding tiger sanctuaries could help, but it often faces opposition. A move to give more protected room—potentially reducing conflicts—was resisted by local communities who feared strict curbs in Kudremukh in Karnataka. Moreover, as scientists point out, there are natural limits to tiger populations and inevitable mortality.

The challenge before the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is to determine whether tiger deaths in a given year are extraordinary or within the natural rates of mortality. A history of poaching and local extinction of the cats in Sariska and Panna in the past, for instance, imposes severe pressure on the forest bureaucracy to reduce losses. The answer to achieving optimal populations lies in established science. Natural causes kill many tigers, especially cubs, and it is important to record this scientifically. Conservation can also be advanced by identifying reserves that can host a bigger cat population and voluntarily resettling forest dwellers to areas where conflicts can be reduced. Such goals call for estimation of not just absolute tiger numbers once in four years, but densities of the species in a reserve, the mortality rate and the recruitment rates—indicating population growth represented by birth rate and survival. After the last census, Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised India’s conservation record on tigers as an achievement of the world as a whole, made possible by thriving ecosystems in the country. Science offers solutions to accurately count tigers and sustain the gains, and the NTCA must adopt these wholeheartedly.

Determining absolute tiger numbers is contentious, but the reported death of 166 tigers during 2025, 40 more than the previous year, has caused understandable anguish among wildlife lovers. The big cats are poster heroes of India’s wildlife story, with an official count of 3,167 tigers during the last census of 2021-22. For context, there were an estimated 1,411 cats in 2006 and 2,967 in 2018. Unnatural mortality of these marquee animals should cause worry, warranting detailed investigation of the causes. The present discussion on tiger deaths comes at an appropriate moment, since a fresh census is just getting underway this year. Even allowing for scientific disagreements on the method of censusing tigers and the cull-versus-relocate management approach towards problem animals, such as maneaters, there appears to be a consensus that many tiger sanctuaries are confronted with overcapacity. This is attributed partly to habitat manipulation, through practices such as the creation of waterholes that artificially boost deer and other prey populations and grasslands that support higher prey and tiger numbers. Conflicts among territory-seeking tigers in crowded natural parks kill a few cats, and others perish due to infrastructure projects and road building, as in Central India. Some fall victim to poaching, while others die in traps set for smaller animals like wild boar. Expanding tiger sanctuaries could help, but it often faces opposition. A move to give more protected room—potentially reducing conflicts—was resisted by local communities who feared strict curbs in Kudremukh in Karnataka. Moreover, as scientists point out, there are natural limits to tiger populations and inevitable mortality.

The challenge before the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is to determine whether tiger deaths in a given year are extraordinary or within the natural rates of mortality. A history of poaching and local extinction of the cats in Sariska and Panna in the past, for instance, imposes severe pressure on the forest bureaucracy to reduce losses. The answer to achieving optimal populations lies in established science. Natural causes kill many tigers, especially cubs, and it is important to record this scientifically. Conservation can also be advanced by identifying reserves that can host a bigger cat population and voluntarily resettling forest dwellers to areas where conflicts can be reduced. Such goals call for estimation of not just absolute tiger numbers once in four years, but densities of the species in a reserve, the mortality rate and the recruitment rates—indicating population growth represented by birth rate and survival. After the last census, Prime Minister Narendra Modi praised India’s conservation record on tigers as an achievement of the world as a whole, made possible by thriving ecosystems in the country. Science offers solutions to accurately count tigers and sustain the gains, and the NTCA must adopt these wholeheartedly.