India marked 50 years of Project Tiger on April 1, 2023. It was on April 1, 1973, that this conservation programme to save the then-vanishing population of the Bengal tiger in India was launched.

National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has accorded in-principle approval.Feb 2023, to Odisha government’s proposal to declare Debrigarh Wildlife Sanctuary as a tiger reserve (TR). It is now for the government to officially issue a notification to this effect. Once it is done, Debrigarh will be the third tiger reserve of the state.

In Oct 2021, NTCA also  approved Chhattisgarh’s proposal to declare the combined areas of the Tamor Pingla Wildlife Sanctuary and the Guru Ghasidas National Park as a Tiger Reserve.

The new Reserve, located in the state’s north, borders Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. This will be Chhattisgarh’s fourth Tiger Reserve after the Udanti-Sitanadi, Achanakmar, and Indravati Reserves.

LEARNING FROM HOME/ WITHOUT CLASSES/ BASICS

The All India Tiger Estimation 2018 survey has entered the Guinness World Record for being the world’s largest camera trap wildlife survey.

India has 2,967 tigers, a third more than in 2014, according to results of a tiger census made public on July 29,2019. Madhya Pradesh saw the highest number of tigers at 526, closely followed by Karnataka (524) and Uttarakhand (442).

• Corbett Tiger Reserve in Uttarakhand has the highest number of 231 big cats in the country
• Nagarhole and Bandipore reserves in Karnataka have 127 and 126 tigers.
• Three are no tigers left in Mizoram’s Dampa, West Bengal’s Buxa and Jharkhand’s Palamau reserves

                 Traditionally eight sub-species of tigers have been recognized, out of which three are extinct. The Indian sub-species is Panthera tigris ; Bengal tiger.

                  The tiger is the largest member of the  (cat) family.Tigers are terminal consumers in the ecological food pyramid, and their conservation results in the conservation of all trophic levels in an ecosystem.

                Project Tiger is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme of Government of India which was launched on the 1st of April, 1973 for in-situ conservation of wild tigers in designated tiger reserves. Project Tiger is being implemented in these States in collaboration with the respective State Governments.  The challenges include: protection against poaching, fragmentation of habitat, securing inviolate space for tiger to facilitate its social dynamics, addressing tiger-human interface, restoration of corridors and eliciting public support of local people by providing ecologically sustainable options.

List of Tiger Reserves Core