wildliFe// Here is good news for wildlife conservationists and tiger lovers. The population of tigers in India has increased from 1,706 in 2011, to 2,226 in 2014. The new tiger census, released by Union Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar, shows that India – which has 70 per cent of the world’s tiger population – has registered an increase of 30 per cent in country’s tiger population in the past three years. “While the tiger population is falling in the world, it is rising in India. It is great news”, said Javadekar. Referring to the census exercise, he added how an exercise on such a massive scale has taken place for the first time, where unique photographs of 80 per cent of the India’s tigers have been taken.

If one looks at the 2008 tiger census figures, the current increase is phenomenal. India’s tiger population was 1,411 in 2008. Tiger census is carried out after a gap of every three years by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in the country. According to the 2011 tiger census report, the tiger population estimated was 1,706 (that is, ranging between a minimum of 1,571 to a maximum of 1,875). The results included figures from 17 states having tiger population.

The latest tiger census figures show that Karnataka has the highest number of tigers in the age group of 1.5 years and more. The state has 408 tigers in that age group, followed by 340 in Uttarakhand, 308 in Madhya Pradesh, 229 in Tamil Nadu, 190 in Maharashtra, 167 in Assam, 136 in Kerala and 117 in Uttar Pradesh.