India’s tiger population rises to over 3,000

NEW DELHI: India’s wild tiger population, the world’s largest, has risen to more than 3,000, according to a census released Sunday (April 9), stepping up efforts to protect the endangered species.

The largest of all cats, tigers once roamed all of central, eastern and southern Asia.

However, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), over the past 100 years, tigers have lost more than 93% of their historical range and currently survive only in scattered populations in 13 countries.

The Indian Census found 3,167 tigers in the wild across the country, up from the 2,967 reported in the last count.

Surveys are conducted every four years to identify each creature individually using camera traps and computer programs.

The rate of increase has slowed from over 30% over the past four years to less than 7% over that period.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, however, said the new leader was a “proud moment”.

“Our family is expanding. “This is a success not only in India but all over the world.”

Deforestation, poaching and human encroachment on their habitat have devastated tiger populations across Asia, but Modi said India has been able to increase its numbers thanks to “people’s involvement” and the country’s “conservation culture”.

India is now home to 75% of the world’s tiger population and is “the world’s largest tiger colony country,” he added.

In 1900 it was estimated that more than 100,000 tigers roam the earth. However, in 2010, it hit an all-time low of 3,200.

That year, India and 12 countries with tiger populations agreed to double the number of big cats by 2022.

It is estimated that India had a population of about 40,000 tigers when it gained independence from Britain in 1947.

In the decades that followed, it dropped to around 3,700 in 2002 and an all-time low of 1,411 four years later, but has since risen steadily.