New Delhi: Madhya Pradesh’s tiger mortality has climbed to 50 this year, the highest annual toll since Project Tiger began in 1973, after two tiger cubs were found dead in Sanjay Tiger Reserve this week. Forest officials said the carcasses, estimated to be around nine months old, were discovered during routine patrolling and bore injuries suggesting an attack by an adult male tiger. A team of veterinarians conducted post-mortem examinations and sent samples for forensic analysis. The incident occurred on the night of 10–11 December, according to officials familiar with the inquiry.
The count had earlier risen to 48 after a tiger was found dead just days ago in Katangi, Balaghat, pushing the state beyond previous mortality highs even as authorities continue to investigate the networks linked to poaching and trafficking.
Data reviewed by this newspaper show that eight tigers were killed in confirmed poaching incidents, most of them involving electrocution through live wires and snaring methods concentrated in Pench, Bandhavgarh, Seoni, Balaghat and Kanha between January and July. In several cases, forest teams recovered electrical cables, nylon loops and other trapping material from the sites, indicating structured hunting operations rather than opportunistic activity. Injuries on the carcasses, including burns and jaw fractures, were consistent with high-voltage current traps laid around field edges and forest boundaries.
A separate cluster of five tiger deaths emerged through seizures of remains, including claws, bones and partially decomposed carcasses, recovered in Seoni, Bandhavgarh, Balaghat and Kanha. These cases, spread across July and October, point to delayed detections where body parts had already been removed. In two incidents in Uttar Balaghat, investigators found 13 claws in one case and a single claw in another, raising suspicion of a systematic extraction and supply chain rather than isolated scavenging. A similar pattern was recorded in Kanha in late October. According to officials familiar with multiple inquiries, the concentration of these cases in Balaghat and adjoining Kanha suggests an active trafficking route operating along the Balaghat–Gondia–Gadchiroli axis, with Seoni functioning as an intermediate handling point.
Thirty-two other tiger deaths were recorded this year due to natural or incidental causes. These included territorial fights among dispersing males, infections, drowning, and a series of decomposed carcasses in which the cause of death could not be established. Railway and road collisions also contributed, including the recent case in Ratapani where a tiger was struck and dragged by a moving train. Several of the natural and unknown deaths occurred in buffer zones and forest–agriculture interfaces across Seoni, Balaghat and Satpura, where habitat fragmentation has intensified over the past decade. The death of the two cubs in Sanjay Tiger Reserve came hours after forest officials in Betul arrested a man seen moving with an illegal firearm inside Satpura Tiger Reserve’s buffer zone. His presence was detected on camera traps installed for the next cycle of the All-India Tiger Estimation. Officials said the suspect was tracked and detained on suspicion of hunting activity before being produced in court and sent to jail. They are examining whether he has links to earlier poaching incidents in the district. Mortality data for the year indicates temporal clustering as well.
July saw three poachinglinked or seizure-linked incidents within a short span, while October recorded three separate recoveries of tiger remains in Balaghat and Kanha. Officers tracking these cases say the October cluster mirrors activity cycles seen in previous years when poaching groups moved through central Indian forests postmonsoon, taking advantage of dense vegetation and reduced patrol visibility.
Spatial mapping of the year’s deaths points to three prominent hotspots: the Balaghat–Kanha landscape, the Bandhavgarh region and the Seoni–Pench corridor. Balaghat recorded repeated deaths across Katangi, Khairlanji and adjoining ranges, confirming its position as both a vulnerable habitat corridor and a trafficking node. Kanha, which functions as a major source population, reported both natural deaths and cases involving removal of claws. Bandhavgarh continued to show a mix of electrocutionlinked deaths and discovery of processed remains. The Seoni corridor, which links Pench to the southern forests, registered seizures consistent with the processing of tiger parts before onward movement.
Senior officers said mortality across age profiles, ranging from young dispersers to older adults, shows that pressures are landscape-wide and not restricted to specific demographic classes. Investigators noted several conflict deaths among sub-adult males, which they link to shrinking safe movement zones between core reserves. The pattern of repeated electrocution deaths early in the year, followed by seizures of claws and bones later in the year, is now being examined for seasonal links to poacher movement and demand cycles in illegal wildlife markets. The escalating mortality has also brought renewed attention to governance lapses at the highest levels. In November last year, the state government removed the then Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Wildlife), V. K. N. Ambade, following the deaths of ten elephants in Bandhavgarh, and appointed Subharanjan Sen as the new PCCF (Wildlife), projecting the reshuffle as a corrective measure aimed at strengthening oversight and tightening field-level management.
Despite the change at the top, poaching clusters have continued across Balaghat, Kanha and Bandhavgarh, trafficking routes remain active, detection of carcasses remains delayed and corridor protection has not improved in a measurable way.
Internal correspondence reviewed by this newspaper shows that even the state’s top forest leadership has formally acknowledged serious lapses in wildlife protection.
In a letter dated December 12, 2025, the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests and Head of Forest Force warned all field formations that incidents of tiger and other wildlife deaths had increased in recent months despite repeated instructions issued earlier in August and November. The letter lists electrocution, road and railway accidents and other causes as contributors to the rising toll, and states that the persistence of such incidents reflects negligence on the part of officers and staff. Noting that seizures of tiger body parts such as claws and bones are continuing even inside protected tiger reserves, the order directed that every case be reviewed, responsibility fixed and disciplinary action initiated against erring personnel, with reports to be submitted to headquarters.Bhopal-based wildlife activist Ajay Dubey said that the government has repeatedly shied away from fixing accountability, which has allowed laxity to creep into the system. “There has been an intelligence failure and the state still does not have a dedicated tiger protection force. Poachers are rarely convicted and there is no accountability at the top. The top leadership of the forest department must answer for this collapse in protection,” Dubey, who has been working in the field of wildlife protection for over fifteen years, told this newspaper. Messages sent to senior officials at the National Tiger Conservation Authority and to union environment minister Bhupender Yadav, seeking a response, did not elicit a response. Ashok Barnwal, Additional Chief Secretary in the Forest and Wildlife Department, also did not respond to an email seeking his version. In response to detailed queries, Chief Wildlife Warden Shubh Ranjan Sen said that Madhya Pradesh “will naturally have the highest number of tiger deaths in the world as we have the highest population of the species,” adding that the forest department takes “great efforts to track and investigate each incident.” He said the department follows all NTCA Standard Operating Protocols and that every death is initially treated as a poaching case unless clear evidence indicates otherwise. According to him, the state has a robust patrolling system and an effective State Tiger Strike Force, and he cited the recent arrest of a fugitive wanted in tiger poaching cases under an Interpol Red Corner Notice as an illustration of the force’s effectiveness. Sen said the department has recorded natural deaths involving cubs and dispersing young tigers, explaining that cubs remain with their mothers only until about 20 months of age, after which subadults, especially males, face increased risks of territorial conflict in forests already occupied by dominant adults. He said that nineteen of this year’s natural deaths involved tigers between one day and two years old. According to Sen, eight tiger deaths this year were attributed to poaching, at least six of them “non-targeted” electrocution incidents where the intended prey was another species. He said fifteen individuals have been arrested in these eight cases and prosecutions are underway, and added that the year has also seen five seizure cases involving recovery of tiger body parts.Providing comparative figures for recent years, Sen said the state had recorded 44 tiger deaths in 2023, 47 in 2024 and 46 so far in 2025. He said the forest department “spares no efforts to bring perpetrators to justice” and remains vigilant across landscapes.
He also pointed to recent enforcement actions to counter allegations of weak intelligence, highlighting the arrest on 2 December of Yangchen Lachungpa, an alleged international wildlife trafficker wanted for illegal trade in tiger parts and pangolin scales.Lachungpa, who was the subject of an Interpol Red Notice issued at India’s request, was arrested near the India–China border in North Sikkim in a joint operation by the State Tiger Strike Force and the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau. According to the department, the case against her, originally registered in Satpura Tiger Reserve in 2015, has so far resulted in the arrest of 31 individuals across a trafficking network operating in India, Nepal, Bhutan and China, and the department described the arrest as a significant milestone in dismantling an organised illegal wildlife trade chain.Sen said tiger numbers in Madhya Pradesh have risen from 308 in 2014 to 526 in 2018 and 785 in 2022, and that the count is expected to rise further in the ongoing All India Tiger Estimation. He said the forest department “is committed to safeguarding our wildlife against all threats.”
Senior officers privately acknowledge that merely replacing the PCCF, as was done in the case of the death of the elephants, without addressing entrenched enforcement gaps, staff shortages, intelligence failures and fragmentation pressures was insufficient.
Anti-poaching teams continue to be overstretched, cross-border coordination with Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh remains patchy, and no significant reinforcements have been provided in high-risk belts of Balaghat and Seoni even after repeated recoveries of processed remains. The persistence of identical poaching cycles year after year has sharpened criticism that the Mohan Yadav government acted for optics and headlines rather than substantive reforms. Wildlife experts and senior field staff point out that the state intervened after the elephant deaths but did not introduce the systemic changes required to stabilise enforcement, protect corridors or deter organised trafficking groups. The Yadav government now faces growing scrutiny over whether its administrative decisions, surveillance systems and enforcement strategies are adequate for safeguarding the country’s largest tiger population. For now, the record numbers point in a single direction: despite the leadership overhaul, Madhya Pradesh has failed to protect its tigers, and the responsibility for that failure sits squarely with the current government.
