Findings of the report

Published: 14th Aug, 2019

India has 2,967 tigers, a third more than in 2014, according to results of a tiger census
This gargantuan exercise is been conducted once in four years.
The year-long tiger estimation process carried out in 2018-19 and compiled by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) did not register any presence of the striped big cat in Buxa Tiger Reserve (TR) in West Bengal, Palamu TR in Jharkhand and Dampa TR in Mizoram.
For the 2018 estimation process, an area of 3, 81,400 square kilometers (sq km) of forest was surveyed. In 2014, the estimation process involved surveying an area of 3, 78,118 sq km of forests.
Tigers colonized 25,709 sq km new areas; their presence could not be ascertained in some areas, the report noted. Overall, areas occupied by tigers shrunk by 17,881 sq km (2014-18).
The decline was spread over three out of India's five tiger landscapes: The Shivalik, Western Ghats and the North East reported a loss of 469 sq km, 527 sq km and 6,589 sq km respectively; Central India and the Sundarbans landscapes registered an increase of 7,532 sq km and 479 sq km respectively.
The overall tiger occupancy of 88,985 sq km was almost the same as the 88,558 sq km in 2014.
Madhya Pradesh saw the highest number of tigers, closely followed by Karnataka and Uttarakhand.
Chhattisgarh and Mizoram saw a decline in tiger population and all other States saw a “positive” increase.
This gargantuan exercise is been conducted once in four years.
Pench Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh recorded the highest number of tigers; Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu registered the “maximum improvement.
India accounts for many of the 3,500-odd tigers that are scattered among Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Laos PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russian Federation, Thailand and Vietnam.