BENGALURU: In a conservation success story, India’s tiger population has made a significant recovery over the past two decades, even while sharing territory with some of the world’s most densely populated human settlements, according to a new study published in Science. This, even as global wildlife populations have declined by 73%. The research, led by scientist and conservationist Yadvendradev V Jhala and colleagues, reveals that tiger-occupied territory in India increased by 30% between 2006 and 2018, expanding at a rate of about 2,929 sq km per year.
India now hosts approximately 75% of the world's wild tigers across an area of roughly 1.4-lakh sqkm. What makes this achievement particularly noteworthy is that it occurred in regions shared with approximately 60 million people, challenging traditional assumptions about the incompatibility of large predator conservation and human settlement.
“This sets a perfect narrative of wildlife-human co-occurrence,” the researchers note, though they stress that success depends on maintaining protected core areas within socioeconomically prosperous and politically stable regions. The study, which analysed data collected by 44,000 personnel over multiple years, found that tigers consistently occupied about 35,255 sq km of protected areas rich in prey species. From these strongholds, the big cats successfully colonised nearby habitats, including areas with human settlements.
However, the research also identified key factors that e.