It was a moment to cherish for the conservation activists to see the Tiger population in India soaring.But expert analysts are too skeptical to believe the census figures. The survey team may have double-counted scores of tigers by misinterpreting camera trap photographs leading to a 16 percent increase according to an analysis of the counting method.
PM Narendra Modi himself had hailed the historic achievement after tiger numbers were reported to have risen from 2,226 in a 2015 survey, to 2,967 this year. Officials said they were confident in the numbers because more than four-fifths of those counted had been photographed by 26,000 cameras set up in known tiger habitats. India promised in the 2010 St Petersburg Declaration to double its big cat population by 2022.
But there is no room for doubt left that the tiger population in India is on the rise, thanks to better protection and monitoring over the last 15 years. Yet it warned the analysis “puts a question mark on the counting process”.
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