Indian park now tiger-free
15th July 2009
Panna National Park in India, one of the country’s major tiger parks, has admitted it no longer has any tigers.
In another blow to India’s troubled tiger conservation efforts, a special survey of the park revealed no traces of any tigers.
Three years ago, a survey reported 24 tigers living in Panna.
A report prepared by India’s central forest ministry says most of the park’s tigers have been lost to poaching.
The introduction of Project Tiger in 1973 was aimed at halting the massive decline in India’s tiger population.
While it initially enjoyed some success, an alarming rise in poaching has seen numbers plummet again.
“This can only be considered bad news in terms of the Indian government’s well-documented attempts to protect their figurehead animal. It’s hard to know how successful or otherwise this project is, such is the level of conflicting information out there,” Oliver James, one of the India team at India to report that it had no tigers left.
There are rumours that Sanjay National Park has now also lost its entire population of tigers.
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