Born Free

But destruction of habitat and poaching continue to be the scourge of tiger populations in India. Text & photographs

Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, Rajasthan: Playing “peekaboo” with the photographer.

When I retired from the United Nations in 1998, I decided to turn my attention to the tigers in India. It was an easy enough decision to make. After 20 years of travelling around the world covering wars and famine, I wanted a complete change. When I saw my first tiger while on vacation in India in the 1980s, helping to spread the word about the big cat’s plight as an endangered species became my passion.

At the turn of the century, an estimated 40,000 tigers roamed the jungles of India. In a census taken in 2011, the number of tigers in India was listed as 1,706. But in the latest census, taken in 2014, the numbers for the worldwide tiger population increased to almost 4,000, with 2,226 in India alone. Many attribute the rise to better methods of counting the tiger rather than to any real increase in tiger numbers.

The fact is that enormous problems still remain. Destruction of habitat and poaching continue to be the two main reasons why tiger populations in India are still in danger. According to the Wildlife Protection Society of India, more tigers have been killed so far in 2016 than in all of 2015. The demand for tiger parts in China for use in traditional medicine means that poaching will not cease until law enforcement operations are increased not only in India but in other countries that are involved in the illegal trade of tiger parts.

The Bengal tiger is still on the World Wide Fund for Nature’s (WWF) endangered species list, and as long as I can I will continue to travel to India to photograph the tiger in the wild. By saving the tiger, we are not only saving a beautiful animal but we are also saving the ecosystem, which will otherwise collapse without it. As Henry David Thoreau once said: “In wildness is the preservation of the world.”

For a photographer there is no better sight than that of a tiger in the wild. What a pity it will be if in the future the only place where tigers can be seen is in a zoo.

John Isaac, 73, joined the United Nations in 1969 and after a distinguished career as a photographer in the Department of Public Information retired as the chief of the photography unit in 1998. He has travelled to more than 100 countries and covered the war in Lebanon, the invasion of Afghanistan, the famine in Ethiopia, the genocide in Rwanda and the war in Bosnia. He also provided coverage for The United Nations Children’s Fund, and among the books he has authored is a series called “Children in Crisis”, which is a first-hand account of the life of children and their families in troubled regions around the world.

He is the recipient of many awards, among them the Photokina International Photo Contest, the Picture of the Year from the Missouri School of Journalism, Best Photograph of the Year from Graphis Magazine , Professional Photographer of the Year from thePhotoimaging Manufacturers and Distributors Association (PMDA), Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Photographic Council and 13 Nikon International Photo contest awards. Since leaving the U.N. John has focussed attention on documenting the tiger in its natural setting in the national parks of India.