On the tiger trail

The Way of the Tiger: Natural History and Conservation of the Endangered Big Cat by K. Ullas Karanth; Bangalore, 2002; pages 131, Rs.495.

THE human fascination with the tiger over the centuries holds within it both the potential for the destruction and eventual extinction of this awe-inspiring denizen of the forest and the promise of its conservation and survival. At a popular level there appears to be no dearth of public awareness of and sympathy towards the cause of the tiger and its conservation. Yet precious little of this storehouse of public goodwill, it appears, is tapped to strengthen conservation efforts in a meaningful way. Thus, despite what appears to be widespread support for a worthy conservation cause, one continues to receive doomsday predictions on the extinction of the tiger owing to a sudden surge in the trade in tiger parts or in poaching.

In his most recent book, The Way of the Tiger: Natural History and Conservation of the Big Cat, a splendid contribution to tiger and tiger conservation studies, wildlife biologist Ullas Karanth fills competently the information gap in respect of this critical conservation concern that faces the international conservationist community as well as the governments and societies of countries that have tiger populations. Unlike many wildlife writers, Karanth does not romanticise the subject of his concern. Writing with style and precision, Karanth puts together a reasoned and compelling scientific picture of the world of the elusive tiger and the possible agendas for its conservation in an era when globalisation and market forces have put pressures of a particularly ruthless kind on dwindling tiger reserves.

Karanth starts with the pertinent question "Why save tigers?" Although there is an overwhelming global consensus today on the need to save the tiger from extinction, this query needs to be answered since tiger populations today exist mainly in developing countries, where the conservation of the tiger implies locking up valuable farm land in protected forest reserves. There are on the one hand ethical and aesthetic answers to this question, as Karanth observes. Tigers are products of millions of years of natural evolution and have therefore a moral right to survive and evolve. In addition, the tiger is one of the most beautiful of nature's creations.

These are strong arguments for saving tigers from extinction, but not the clinching ones. Karanth argues that tigers and their habitats must be protected for the tangible benefits they offer to human societies. Tiger landscapes constitute less than 5 per cent of the land in tiger-range countries. These landscapes are also watersheds of major river systems in Asia such as the Ganga, the Brahmaputra, the Irrawaddy and the Mekong. "When we protect tiger forests from logging, overgrazing, fires and conversion to cropland," Karanth writes, "we are not indulging in a luxury that we cannot afford in a poverty-stricken, overpopulated world. We are, in fact, protecting the soil water resources that sustain millions of people in Asia." These tiger forests are also banks of biological diversity, complex ecosystems that are central to the welfare of populations that live near them.

Karanth poses a series of questions that confront tiger conservation efforts. Should tiger populations coexist with human settlements or should the two be separated? Are economic activities such as agriculture, livestock rearing and the collection of forest produce compatible with the aims of tiger conservation? What drives the decline in tiger numbers the international trade in tiger body parts or the depletion of the prey base owing to hunting by forest-dependent populations? Who should be put in charge of tiger conservation efforts local authorities or government departments? Should communities living near tiger habitats be given commercial incentives to protect tigers, or should appeals be made to their sense of local pride and environmental concern? Can captive breeding save wild tigers, and if so how much money should be put into captive breeding? Or, does captive breeding make any difference at all to the conservation of wild tigers? What are the criteria to measure the success (or failure) of a tiger conservation programme?

These are just some of the complex conservation issues that Karanth takes us through. He presents lucidly current knowledge on issues such as the tiger's evolutionary history, its predatory ecology and prey needs, its breeding patterns and why tiger cubs have extremely fragile survival chances (even in productive habitats, tiger cubs appear to have mortality rates of 35 to 45 per cent in their first year). Critical to the survival of tigers is a prey population that must itself not get depleted through excessive hunting by forest-dependent populations. In good habitats like Kaziranga, tiger densities can go up to 20 per 100 sq km. It is the over-hunting of prey bases such as deer and pig by the vast majority of the rural populations in Asia, and not trade-driven tiger poaching, that has put the greatest pressure on tiger populations. Karanth offers a ready rule of thumb to illustrate the impact. For every 50 deer hunted in a year, there is room for one tiger fewer on the earth.

In his discussion on conservation paradigms, Karanth writes of the impact of the `sustainable use' development paradigm, which international aid agencies promoted in the 1990s in indebted tiger range countries. Austerity measures that were imposed cut the funding needed for tiger protection. This apart, the same aid agencies encouraged the shift from the time-tested protection-of-core-tiger-reserve approach to one that made park managers enlist local support in the implementation of development activities outside the reserves. "As a result of this paradigm shift, tiger protection efforts were seriously undermined in the 1990s," Karanth writes.

Efforts at tiger conservation received a further jolt in the 1990s when a huge trade in tiger body parts was uncovered by sting operations in India. This had both a positive and a negative fallout on tiger conservation efforts. Enforcement efforts against the illegal trade in tiger parts, particularly in China, South Korea and Taiwan, were tightened, resulting, in the short run, in a decline in the volume of trade in tiger body parts. However, it also led to the strengthening of the view that captive breeding must become the cornerstone of tiger conservation, leading to substantial funding being diverted to it.

Karanth does not agree with the view that trade-driven poaching is the single most important cause of tiger decline. The real reason, he argues, is in the "declining commitment to protected areas for tigers that are free from incompatible human activities. Measures for tackling the tiger trade problem, such as catching tiger traders, tightening trade laws or educating consumers of tiger products, simply did not deal with the core issue of preserving the tiger's prey base and habitat in the wild." Conservationists must put efforts into convincing the public and decision-makers that the dismantling of protected areas in the existing tiger reserves will doom the tiger to extinction, he argues.

Given the enormous public support for the cause of saving the tiger, the cause of the wild tiger is not a lost one, provided scientific conservation mechanisms are put in place. Central to this is the establishment of protected reserves that are buffered by "compatible land uses", and de-linking such habitats from the forces of market-driven commerce.

One issue that Karanth has not addressed, but which is surely a major one in the success of a tiger conservation programme, is the impact of growing tiger tourism on conservation efforts. The human urge to see one of nature's most imposing creations in the wild is a natural one. Can wildlife tourism be made compatible with the conservation paradigm that Karanth argues must be enforced to stop the decline in tiger populations?

Karanth has employed a powerful pictorial technique in his book. A full page photograph of a tiger accompanies every page of print. The outstanding photographic images capture tigers in their many moods and environments, and provide compelling visual support for the arguments in the text. The Indian edition of the book is reasonably priced and would lend itself to excellent classroom use in biology and environmental science.