Tiger deaths rampant in Madhya Pradesh, accountability goes missing

NEW DELHI: On 29 July 2019, a day marked as the “International Tiger Day”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared the result of Tiger Census 2018. The census had found that India was home to 2,967 tigers. Following the result of the 2018 Tiger Census, Madhya Pradesh became the tiger state of India, with 526 tigers, replacing Karnataka.
However, since then, the number of big cats is falling rapidly in the state. This is likely to become public when the findings of the next census, slated for next year, come out. As per the latest figures provided by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) of India, the country lost 127 tigers in 2021 (including adult, sub-adult and cubs). Out of these 121, 42 died in Madhya Pradesh. In 2022, till 6 December, the country lost 107 tigers, the share of Madhya Pradesh was 38. In all, of the 228 tigers that have died in India in the last two years, 80 of them—or 35%—have died in Madhya Pradesh alone. The “Tiger state of India” has been losing one tiger every 9 days for the last two years.
Madhya Pradesh had generated positive global headlines after 8 Namibian cheetahs were introduced in the Kuno wildlife sanctuary. With the state losing its tigers at such an alarming rate, wildlife conservationists are likely to start ringing the alarm bells regarding the fate of these cheetahs that are more vulnerable and much easier to poach on than tigers. The tiger deaths are taking place so frequently that they have now stopped generating headlines in the media, with the state and forest administration now treating these like a “regular occurrence”.
However, senior Madhya Pradesh forest officials told The Sunday Guardian that it would not be correct to attribute all these deaths as “problematic” as many of these deaths had taken place due to natural reasons like disease, territorial fights, old-age etc. The latest such tiger death took place on 6 December, when a two-year-old 250 kg male tiger, in his prime, died a painful death after being caught in a wire trap which tightened around its neck the more he struggled before finally cutting off his last breath. This gruesome incident took place in Tilgawan beat, North division, Panna Tiger Reserve, 420 km from Satpura Bhawan, Bhopal, which houses the Forest Department headquarters. Sources said that the tiger was caught in the trap at least 48 hours before his dead body was eventually discovered by the forest officials on Tuesday night.
Well-known Bhopal-based wildlife activist, Ajay Dubey, who has been working on the topic of tiger conservation for more than a decade now, said that the recent incident showed how callous the state government was when it came to saving tigers.
“A male tiger’s cries and howl, during the time he was stuck in that trap, would have travelled a long distance and yet the Forest Department officials found him only after two days. This shows how the situation is on the ground in a reserve which has been given the best tools like drones and night surveillance equipment to take care of the tigers. Incidentally, the North Division, where the killing took place, has been without a Divisional Forest Officer (DFO) for the last few months,” Dubey said.
Panna Tiger Reserve Field Director, Brijendra Jha, while speaking to this newspaper, stated that the death of the tiger took place outside the PTR area and the said spot comes under the Chhattarpur range.
Sanjeev Jha, the conservator of forest, Chhatarpur range, said that the department had identified two people for this incident. “Both are local villagers, who had put up the trap to kill wild animals for the purpose of personal consumption. The tiger, unfortunately, got stuck in that wire trap, which along with the wooden keg that held it on the ground, continued to stay with it even after the tiger moved away from the spot. Later, the tiger, it seems, climbed a tree with the wire trap that is 4 feet in length and the wooden keg was still stuck on its neck. However, when the tiger was climbing or jumping down from the tree, the wooden keg got lodged on the branches and that led to the wire trap strangulating him. It would be wrong to say that the tiger cried for hours and no one heard it,” he told The Sunday Guardian over phone. The department has identified two local villagers—Nepal Singh and Inder Singh—whose house was identified by sniffer dogs that were pressed into service to find out who had put the wire trap.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan on Thursday ordered the suspension of deputy ranger Ajit Khare and beat guard Arun Trivedi for lapses related to “patrolling” duties. These two posts are among the junior most posts in the forest department hierarchy. According to sources, Veni Prasad, who had the additional charge of the division, is likely to escape punishment.
The Forest Department, in the recent past, had sent a few names for appointment as DFO, North Division, but the names were not approved due to political reasons in a state where, as per Ajay Dubey, all such appointments are done only after “fees” are given to people sitting in Bhopal. Similar posts are lying vacant in Rewa, Gwalior, Chhindwara and Balaghat circles.
“Unless and until the top officials concerned are not held accountable and punished, such incidents will continue to happen. There is no fear of the law or administrative action in the minds of the forest officials as they know that they can escape their punishment by reaching out to people in Bhopal to manage things, as happened in the recent case. The Deputy Ranger and the beat guards hardly have any power and they have been suspended because they are the weakest administrative link. The onus to save the tigers is also on the Indian Forest Service officers,” a senior Bhopal-based forest official said.
Incidentally, on 1 December, just five days before the recent death of the tiger, Dubey had written to the NTCA regarding no action being taken against any official for the circumstances that led to the death of a tiger named Heera (technical name P 234-31) of Panna Tiger Reserve, who was fitted with a Rs 9 lakh worth Very High Frequency (VHF) collar and was poached, with even his skin and nails being ripped off, in November 2021 in Singhpur forest range, Satna.
In that case, upon getting directions from the Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (PCCF), Wildlife, the then DFO of Satna, Vipil Patel constituted a committee that comprised officials reporting to him and on 29 December 2021 submitted a report that held no one accountable for the death of Heera.
The report’s credibility came under suspicion as despite the signals from the tiger’s collar stopped coming on 16 October, no action was taken by the forest officials despite the rules stating that if there was no signal for more than four hours, a search party had to be constituted to look for the tiger. However, the Forest Department officials took 18 days to locate him. P234-31 was collared on 6 January 2021.
Heera (P234-31) and Panna (P234-32) were two brothers, who became popular with tourists for “posing” for the cameras and for always being seen together. They were born in November 2019 to Tigress P234 in her third litter. They had one sister (P234-33), who died in November 2020 in a car accident. After her death, her mother (P234) continued her “searching calls” for days and nights. These were extensively documented by the field staff.
The Sunday Guardian’s email to top officials of NTCA seeking their response on whether the death of 80 tigers in Madhya Pradesh in the last two years had “alarmed’ the body and if they had recommended any action against forest officials in the death of Heera, received no response till the time the story went to press.
Atul Kumar Mishra, Secretary, Forest Department, Government of Madhya Pradesh, did not respond to The Sunday Guardian’s queries on if any action was being taken against senior forest officers for lapses, if any, in the present case. J.N. Kansotiya, Additional Chief Secretary, Forest Department, too did not respond to queries as to what steps the state government was taking to check tiger deaths in the state.