TIGER ATTACK DEATHS SAW A FALL BETWEEN 2013 AND 2016

NEWDELHI: The number of people dying from tiger attacks fell in 2016 by almost a third of the numbers in 2013 from 36 to 11, according to a data shared by the environment ministry in Parliament on Friday.

Data about deaths attributed to tiger attacks in and around tiger reserves was collected from 19 tiger-bearing states. West Bengal recorded the most drastic decline from nine in 2013 to zero in 2016. Deaths in Karnataka also fell from five to zero in the same time period.

Tiger populations in India have, however, witnessed a steady rise from 1,706 in 2010 to 2,226 in 2014. Debabrata Swain, chief of National Tiger Conservation Authority, cautioned against seeing the decline in human deaths as an indicator of decreasing man-animal conflict.

“Wherever tiger population rises, the human-wildlife conflict will intensify,” Swain added. “The underlying causes of the conflict remains the same. The lower number of deaths may be because of greater awareness in areas of high tiger deaths. It is also a matter of chance.”

Despite elephant populations registering a decline in the five years from 2012 to 2017, humanelephant conflict has increased, according to experts. Deaths from elephant attacks have increased marginally from 413 in 2013 to 419 in 2015 .

Of 16 elephant- bearing states considered, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand did not share data about elephant attack-related deaths for all three years.

Tito Joseph, programme manager at Wildlife Protection Society of India, blamed ground level strategies for the attacks. Elephants are migratory species. Some state forest departments are trying to restrict their entry back into their areas once they move out to reduce conflict. When this happens, the elephants are forced to remain in areas where people and officials are under prepared, he added.