Wiped out by poachers, relocated from Ranthambore, fighting for land from locals… this how Sariska tigers made a heroic return.
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AnimalsTranscript
00:00This jungle close to Delhi now had tigers again, but it took over a decade for the relocated
00:07tiger population to thrive in Sariska.
00:09As a result of Project Tiger, 70% of the world's tigers today are found in India.
00:23The beginning of the end for the tigers in Sariska came with the arrival of a man named
00:28He was a notorious wildlife trader who allegedly changed the economics of poaching in Sariska
00:34by incentivising other poachers with large sums of money.
00:38Officials first said that Sariska had about 40 tigers in the 1980s, but later revealed
00:44that the number was actually closer to 20.
00:47By 2001, there were just a handful left.
00:50A report by the Tiger Task Force said 3 tigers were killed in 2002, 3 in 2003 and Sariska's
00:57last 4 tigers were killed in 2004.
01:00These numbers differed from the CBI's numbers which said that Sariska's last 6 tigers were
01:04killed in 2004.
01:05The following year, the CBI submitted a report to Rajya Sabha declaring that there were no
01:11tigers left there.
01:142008 onwards, 5 tigers and 6 tigresses were relocated from Ranthambore to Sariska.
01:23At first, it seemed as though the relocation didn't succeed.
01:262 of the 11 big cats were poached, and 4 of the tigresses couldn't have cubs because
01:31of different factors like excessive mining and other human disturbances.
01:36Local panchayats wanted permission to develop plots of land within the reserve.
01:40And around 2021-2022, some ministers and MLAs were asking for the kilometre-wide eco-sensitive
01:47zone around Sariska to be reduced to 25 metres.
01:51Why?
01:52To prevent closing 30 mines that were located inside the zone, and because there were more
01:56than 100 densely populated villages in the area.
01:59But after more than a decade of such struggles, the tiger population not only stabilised but
02:13also flourished.
02:18Durrani Verma, the founder of the Sariska Tiger Foundation, told Times of India that
02:22since 2020, 17 tigers were born inside Sariska.
02:26There were now 30 tigers in the reserve, and the forest department was introducing more
02:31animals that had become extinct there, like sloth bears and wild dogs.
02:35Although Sariska's forest cover had decreased by 16 square kilometres between 2011 and 2021,
02:42officials were now relocating villages out of the reserve where Sariska could comfortably
02:47house around 50 tigers.
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