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Conservation of Tiger and

Rhino in India

What is Wildlife?
Wildlife means all the flora and fauna,
which are not domesticated by humans.
It includes animals, plants and
microorganisms.

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India is an enchanting country profuse with wildlife. With

so many species of flora and fauna, it becomes imperative
to protect endangered wildlife as this is the heritage of
this incredible country. Not only does the diversity of
wildlife enhance the natural splendour of nature, but if it
becomes extinct, will be a great loss to India as they also
play an important role in supporting its living systems.

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What is BIODIVERSITY?
Biological diversity or biodiversity
is the term given to the variety of
life on Earth. It is the variety within
and between all species of plants,
animals and micro-organisms and
the ecosystems within which they live
and interact.

Biodiversity comprises of all the

millions of different species that
live on our planet, as well as the
genetic differences within species.
It also refers to the multitude of
different ecosystems in which
species form unique communities,
interacting with one another and the
air, water and soil.

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Facts related to Biodiversity

There are 5 million to 100 million species on earth.
Only about 1.9 million species have been catalogued so far.
There are 34 recognised Hotspots in the world.
44% of global plant species and 35.3% of vertebrate species
are present in hotspots
Total land area of India - 143 million ha
India occupies 2.47% of the Worlds geographical area and
has only 1% of the forest
India has 16.1% of world human population and 15.1% of
cattle population Forest Cover in India- 23.57%

Biodiversity hotspots

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Indias rich biodiversity

India has nearly 8 per cent of the total number of species in
the world (estimated to be 1.6 million).
Over 81,000 species of fauna and 47,000 species of flora are
found in this country so far!
Of the estimated 47,000 plant species, about 15,000
flowering species are endemic (indigenous) to India.
Among the larger animals in India, 79 species of mammals, 44
of birds, 15 of reptiles, and 3 of amphibians are threatened.
Nearly 1,500 plant species are considered endangered.
Flowering plants and vertebrate animals have recently
become extinct at a rate estimated to be 50 to 100 times the
average expected natural rate.

BIODIVERSITY IN INDIA
Himalayas - This majestic range of
mountains is the home of a diverse range
of flora and fauna. Eastern Himalayas is
one of the two biodiversity hotspots in
India.

Chilika - This wetland area is protected

under the Ramsar convention.

Sunder bans - The largest mangrove

forest in India.

Western Ghats - One of the two

biodiversity hotspots in India.

Thar desert - The climate and vegetation

in this area
is a contrast to the Himalayan region.

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Human aided destruction of wild life

Why is wildlife conservation necessary

Esthetic values - Many wildlife species are renowned for their beauty.
Colourful birds, insects, beautiful flowers, trees make environment
beautiful.
Recreational values are qualities assigned to wildlife related to sports
or hobbies.
Ecological values are characteristics of wildlife related to the
relationship of a species or group of species to its environment,
community, or ecosystem.
Educational and scientific values are characteristics related to
learning and teaching about wildlife.
Utilitarian values are characteristics of wildlife that make them useful
to humans
Commercial values are qualities of wildlife that make them
economically valuable. Wild life provides a number of useful products
like food, medicine, honey, lac, wax, resin, etc.

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Why is wildlife conservation necessary

Maintains ecological balance & the organisms have their
unique positions in food chains, food webs which keep
ecological balance.
Wild life contributes to the maintenance of material
cycles such as carbon and nitrogen cycles.
For improvement and progress in agriculture, animal
husbandry and fisheries the genes from wild life
preserved as gene bank are utilised in breeding
programmes.

Why is wildlife conservation necessary

FOREST PROVIDES MULTIPLE BENEFITS TO ENVIRONMENT, HUMAN, AND ANIMALS

BENEFITS
TO
ANIMALS

BENEFITS
TO MAN

BENEFITS TO
ENVIRONMENT

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Issues affecting wildlife

Loss of habitats
Agriculture

Fragmentation and disturbance of habitats

Agriculture
Logging

Poaching

Condition of Wild life in India

The flora and fauna of wild species
today is declining rapidly in India.
Extinction is a possibility for over 77
mammals, 72 bird species, 17 reptile
species, 3 amphibian species.
Large number of bioindicators like
butterflies and bees are getting
endangered.
Rapid rise in industrialization has
hampered the ecosystem and had badly
affected the wild animals.
Wildlife in India is on the mercy of
human beings as the mortality rate of
animals is increasing due to hunting and
poaching.

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Wildlife destruction in India

Over exploitation of forests,
Illicit felling of trees
International wildlife trade (1960-70)
Nature against nature
Encroachment of villagers on forest
land
Global warming (30% of all species
might vanish in coming decade.
Unhealthy relation of the government
with local population
Local hunting and poaching by
villagers
Unloyalty of forest officials

What is the history of wildlife conservation?

Yellowstone National Park
First national park in the world.
Its purpose was to preserve the natural resources of
the area.
1872
Located in Idaho, Montana & Wyoming
3,472 sq. miles
2,221,773 sq. acres

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Wildlife Conservation Efforts in India

Last few decades have seen emergence of
human encroachment to an extent that has
never been seen. This is one of the
greatest threat to India's wildlife.
In order to overcome the result of human
encroachment many national parks as well
as protected areas have been established
so far and the first came in 1935.
Also in 1972, to protect the tiger and
wildlife in India, the Wildlife Protection
Act and Project Tiger to safeguard were
enacted.

Tiger conservation

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20 to 26 years

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Subspecies of tiger

The Royal Bengal Tiger

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The Royal Bengal Tiger

Todays position of tiger in India

The illegal poaching of tigers for their parts and
destruction of their habitat through buffer zone
encroachment are the biggest challenges faced in
the fight to save our Tigers.
The decline is said to be largely down to poachers
serving an insatiable demand for tiger bones,
claws and skin in China, Taiwan and Korea, where
they are used in traditional medicine.
Other factors include electric fences erected by
farmers, illegal logging and fights between male
tigers over diminishing territory.
Between 1994 to 2009, the wildlife protection
society of India has documented 893 cases of
tigers killed in India

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Reality of Tigers in India

A century ago, India had about 40,000
tigers. By 1988, as a result of extensive
hunting and poaching, there were just
4,500 left. Now the true figure is 1,000.
Panna, located near Khajuraho, is the
22nd reserve in India. It was given the
Award of Excellence in 2007 as the best
maintained national park of India by the
Ministry of Tourism of India. By 2009, the
entire tiger population had been
eliminated by poaching with the collusion
of forest department officials.
Sariska National Park in Rajasthan lost all its tigers in 2005.
The decline is said to be largely down to poachers serving an
insatiable demand for tiger bones, claws and skin in China, Taiwan
and Korea, where they are used in traditional medicine. Other
factors include electric fences erected by farmers, illegal logging
and fights between male tigers over diminishing territory.

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Reality of Tigers
Just 1,411 tigers left in India
The Indian government admitted that nobody
has seen a Royal Bengal tiger in Panna
National Park since 2009.

Range of Tigers

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2011 TIGER POPULATION

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PROJECT TIGER
Task force of the Indian Board of Wild Life (IBWL), the
Project Tiger was launched on 1st April 1973 in India.
Starting from 9 (total area: 13,017 sq km) reserves in
1973-74 the number is grown up to 42 (till March 2013)
located in different kinds of habitats across the
country.
A total area of 49,112 km2 is covered by these project tiger
areas, which is 1.49 % of the total geographical area of the
country.
A core zone of 300 sq km was identified in each reserve
along with a sizable extend of buffer zone.

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PROJECT TIGER
The project aims at ensuring a viable population of tigers in their
natural habitats and preserving areas of biological importance as a
natural heritage for the people.
The selection of areas for the reserves represented as close as
possible the diversity of ecosystems across the tiger's distribution in
the country.
Various tiger reserves were created in the country based on a 'corebuffer' strategy. For each tiger reserve, management plans were
drawn up based on the following principles:
Elimination of all forms of human exploitation and biotic
disturbance from the core area and rationalization of activities in
the buffer zone.
Restricting the habitat management only to repair the damages
done to the ecosystem by human and other interferences so as
to facilitate recovery of the ecosystem to its natural state.
Monitoring the faunal and floral changes over time and carrying
out research about wildlife.

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The Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros

unicornis),
also called the greater one-horned
rhinoceros or Indian one-horned
rhinoceros (Family: Rhinocerotidae).
Listed as a vulnerable species
It is the fifth largest land animal.
Among terrestrial land mammals native
to Asia, the Indian rhinoceros is second
in size only to the Asian elephant. This
heavily built species is also the secondlargest living rhinoceros, behind only the
white rhinoceros.
The Indian Rhinoceros can run at speeds
of up to 25 mph (40 km/h) for short
periods of time and is also an excellent
swimmer. It has excellent senses of
hearing and smell, but relatively poor
eyesight.

Physical Characteristics

Largest Rhinoceros
6000 pounds-male
2000 pounds-female
Average height 1.7 meters tall
Grayish with black head
Skin tone can be brownish
Armor, riveted like skin
One horn
Has many folds and bumps

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Habitat/Location/Diet

Northeastern India
Grasslands
Grass can be up to 8 meters tall.
Marshy swamps bordered by woodlands
Apples
Hay
Vegetables- Lettuce, carrots, sweet potatoes
Peanut butter as treat in zoos
Grass, shrubs, branches, and leaves.

General Individual Behaviors

Resting
Wallowing
Charging
Swimming
Drinking
Grazing
Foraging for food

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General Social Behaviors

Seeking Mate
Breeding
Caring For Young
Defending Territory
Marking Territory

Fun Facts
Rhinos have great hearing and smell but poor
eyesight.
There is a myth that the Indian One Horned Rhino is
related to the unicorn.
60 percent of pregnancies are successful
Male Rhinos have nothing to do with raising the
young.

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Range map of Indian Rhinoceros

One-horned rhinos once ranged across the
entire northern part of the Indian Subcontinent,
along the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra
River basins, from Pakistan to the IndianBurmese border, including parts of Nepal,
Bangladesh and Bhutan. They also existed in
Myanmar, and southern China.
but excessive hunting reduced the natural
habitat drastically.

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As a result of habitat destruction and climatic changes their range has

gradually been reduced so that by the 19th century, they only survived
in the Terai grasslands of southern Nepal, northern Uttar Pradesh,
northern Bihar, northern Bengal, and in the Brahmaputra
Valley of Assam.
Today, their range has further shrunk to a few pockets in
southern Nepal, northern Bengal, and the Brahmaputra Valley.
In the 1980s, rhinos were frequently seen in the narrow plain area of
Royal Manas National Park in Bhutan. Today, they are restricted to
habitats surrounded by human-dominated landscapes, so that they often
occur in adjacent cultivated areas, pastures and secondary forests.
Rhinos are regionally extinct in Pakistan.

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Indian rhinoceros range

primarily found in north-eastern

Indias Assam and in protected
areas in the Terai of Nepal, where
populations are confined to the
riverine grasslands in the foothills of
the Himalayas.

Today, about 3,000 rhinos live in the

wild, 2,000 of which are found in
India's Assam alone.

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Conservation
The Indian and Nepalese governments have taken major steps
toward Indian Rhinoceros conservation with the help of the
World Wildlife Fund (WWF).
The Kaziranga National Park, Manas National Park in Assam,
Pobitora reserve forest in Assam, Orang National park and
Laokhowa reserve forest of Assam and Royal Chitwan National
Park in Nepal are homes for this endangered animal.

Greater One Horned Rhino Programs India & Nepal

The Greater One Horned Rhinoceros is a conservation success story with
the species moving from Endangered to Vulnerable classification in 2008.
The population has turned around from approximately 200 individuals in
the late 19th century to over 3,250 throughout India and Nepal today. This
is thanks to strict protection of the species within national parks and park
protection.
Re-introduction programs have begun and the species is starting to
repopulate former habitats where not so long ago they had become extinct
from.
We cannot afford relax though - poaching is still a major threat to the Indian
rhino as is habitat quality. Most of the rhino habitat is surrounded by people
and farming. Rhino are known to stray from the safety of the parks and
human rhino conflict is often encountered resulting in death or injury from
both parties.
Lot of efforts on rhino relocation, habitat survey and analysis as well as
community outreach and education programmes are ongoing.

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Indian Rhino Vision (IRV) 2020 Project

IRV 2020 is a partnership among the government of Assam, the International Rhino
Foundation, the World Wide Fund for Nature, the Bodoland Territorial Council, and the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service that aims to attain a population of 5,000 wild rhinos in
seven of Assam's protected areas by the year 2020.
Translocations are the backbone of the IRV 2020 program.
The species is a popular zoo animal about 175 Greater one-horned rhino (GOHR)
live in 66 zoos around the world.
As a result of increasing commitment to conservation, zoos and NGOs from Europe,
Australia and the United States have joined forces to support the GOHR translocations
and have contributed more than half a million dollars to the program over the past few
years.
More than 85 percent of the worlds Greater one-horned rhino population inhabits
Kaziranga National Park in Assam, India. Having most of the animals in one population
puts it at risk from catastrophes such as floods or disease outbreaks, which could lead
to a serious population decline.
Pobitora National Park holds about 90 rhinos -- the parks carrying capacity has been
exceeded, which leads to an increased risk of rhino-human conflict as animals move
out of the park and into agricultural areas to forage for food.
The goal of Indian Rhino Vision 2020 is to reduce risks to Indias rhino population by
ensuring that the animals are spread throughout multiple parks with enough habitat to
encourage population growth.

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Genetic census of Greater One-horned Rhino in Gorumara National Park, West

Bengal, India

Effective management and long term conservation of GOHR may in future take
benefits of a multidisciplinary approach, including the use of molecular tools in
genetic monitoring of natural populations.
For the first time in the history of GOHR census, advanced genetic tools have been
used in Gorumara National Park of West Bengal, India. As part of a project
undertaken by Aaranyak with financial support from ARP, Australia, dung DNA
analysis based techniques have been used to determine minimum number of rhinos
present in Gorumara and to understand the contemporary extent of genetic diversity in
the population.
Gorumara National Park has a known small population size of rhinos (42, according
to the census conducted by the Forest Department in the year 2012), with a reported
skewed sex ratio with higher number of males that the females.
Moreover, according to the Ministry of Environment and Forests, Govt. of India, in
the year 2009, Gorumara is one of the best managed National Parks in the country.

Strengthening conservation measures of Greater one-horned rhino (Rhinoceros

unicornis) in Orang National Park, Assam, India.
Asian Rhino Project(ARP), Australia is supporting the Aaranyak project in Assam.
Though the Greater One horned rhino is considered as vulnerable by IUCN it is still
in high risk for its survival in Assam because of severe threats from poachers, wildlife
trafficking, fragmentation and degradation of its habitat in past couple of decades.
Assam is one of the last strongholds of the GOHR with a total population of 2201 as
estimated by the Assam Forest Department in the year 2009.
Orang National Park, with an area of 78.8 sq. km. is an important rhino bearing area
having 64 wild rhinos as estimated by Assam Forest Department in 2009. The rhino
population in Orang National Park is fluctuating from 35 rhinos in the year 1972 to 97
rhinos in the year 1991 and which is again reduced to 64 rhinos in the 2009. This
fluctuation of rhino population in Orang National Park is mainly due to the severe
intensity of poaching in comparison to other rhino bearing areas of Assam.
Between 1983 to 2009, 122 rhinos were poached in Orang National Park. During the
period from 2006 to 2009 approximately 30 rhinos were poached in the park. The
major factors attributable to the increased poaching are lack of awareness among the
local stakeholders about the need to conserve rhinos, unscientific monitoring system
of rhino and lack of socio-economic database of the fringe villages of the park.

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HOW CAN THE COMMUNITY CONTRIBUTE

TOWARDS CONSERVATION?
The government can formulate laws and policies, put various
Conservation Projects into place but the success of these projects lies
with the people. It is the community that is responsible for the effective
implementation of these initiatives.
As members of a community it is our duty to conserve and protect the
Natural Vegetation and Wildlife not just for our present but for the future
generation as well.
It also ensures sustainable development.

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Summary
Wildlife are important resources
for economic development and
play
valuable
ecological
functions.
Integrated conservation actions
among stakeholders are vital to
achieve sustainable
development.

Puja Ray

74

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