Sariska celebrates 15th anniversary of the first tiger reintroduction of India on Wednesday.
Thirty tonne of iron, 5,000 square metre of chainlink fence, 400 bags of cement, and 150 labourers from the Kundalka village within Sariska, joined together to erect the citadel for India’s first reintroduced tiger, to welcome the most prestigious cargo by Indian Air Force helicopter MI-17, on June 28, 2008.
The king set its foot on the Sariska soil at 1.12pm to create history. The gaze for 26 seconds after release of the tiger towards the gate of the 1 hectare enclosure at Nayapani, remain fresh in the minds of the team that were witness to the moment. Fifteen years later, with 28 surviving tigers, Sariska thrives and lives, due to sheer grit of field officials and the frontline staff.
The ‘Island Biogeography Theory’ proposed by ecologist Robert MacArthur and the biologist Edward O Wilson in 1967 is very relevant even today.
According to the theory, creating a reserve, i.e., a ‘biological island’ will lead to a decrease in species diversity. The number of species a reserve can hold at equilibrium will depend on its size, its distance from other areas of similar habitats and the dispersal powers of the species concerned.
Sariska fits exactly into this theory with little or no connectivity and so do such island protected areas which will always survive with a threat perception of extinction. The effect of human caused mortality on small, insular tiger populations are severe, especially on female breeders, in contrast to the postulates where tigers populations are highly vulnerable to prey depletion. The loss of tigers in Sariska Tiger Reserve was apparently an example in which high poaching rates, coupled with the absence of immigration, resulted in localised extinction thereby supporting the Island theory. As the first initiative by NTCA, Government of Rajasthan and WII-Dehradun, this pioneering attempt to reintroduce the tiger, remains a turning point in tiger conservation with reintroductions attempted again in 2009 in Panna (MP), 2018 in Satkosia (Odisha) and Nauradehi (MP), 2023 in Madhav National Park of MP and Rajaji Tiger Reserve (Uttarakhand). There were reinforcements at Mukundara in 2018 and Ramgarh- Vishdhari in 2022 too.
The significance of relocation of villages was felt after the Sariska imbroglio in 2005. It’s the toughest task in conservation as one can understand how difficult it is to convince people residing for decades in the forest with free resource to leave their homeland. It’s a difficult social engineering process. However, progress has been made in relocating villages and despite its adversities, Sariska management has relocated five villages completely out of 29 from the core. The process is on with over 750 families relocated out of targeted 1,150 from identified 11 villages. The breeding success is bound to increase with more inviolate areas for core natal areas to breeding tigresses. The reintroduction programme for tigers launched in Sariska in 2008 has reiterated the concept that survival of species in isolated habitats, facing threats of extinction, need active management initiations like reintroduction which seems to be a good alternative in the conservation and preservation of endangered species.
But one should never forget what happened in Sariska and never undermine the threats. Together the department is gradually moving ahead in developing an enabling atmosphere for a minimum viable population in Sariska.
Though an island, Sariska must live.
Gupta, IFS, former deputy field director in Sariska during tiger reintroduction. Views expressed are personal.
Thirty tonne of iron, 5,000 square metre of chainlink fence, 400 bags of cement, and 150 labourers from the Kundalka village within Sariska, joined together to erect the citadel for India’s first reintroduced tiger, to welcome the most prestigious cargo by Indian Air Force helicopter MI-17, on June 28, 2008.
The king set its foot on the Sariska soil at 1.12pm to create history. The gaze for 26 seconds after release of the tiger towards the gate of the 1 hectare enclosure at Nayapani, remain fresh in the minds of the team that were witness to the moment. Fifteen years later, with 28 surviving tigers, Sariska thrives and lives, due to sheer grit of field officials and the frontline staff.
The ‘Island Biogeography Theory’ proposed by ecologist Robert MacArthur and the biologist Edward O Wilson in 1967 is very relevant even today.
According to the theory, creating a reserve, i.e., a ‘biological island’ will lead to a decrease in species diversity. The number of species a reserve can hold at equilibrium will depend on its size, its distance from other areas of similar habitats and the dispersal powers of the species concerned.
Sariska fits exactly into this theory with little or no connectivity and so do such island protected areas which will always survive with a threat perception of extinction. The effect of human caused mortality on small, insular tiger populations are severe, especially on female breeders, in contrast to the postulates where tigers populations are highly vulnerable to prey depletion. The loss of tigers in Sariska Tiger Reserve was apparently an example in which high poaching rates, coupled with the absence of immigration, resulted in localised extinction thereby supporting the Island theory. As the first initiative by NTCA, Government of Rajasthan and WII-Dehradun, this pioneering attempt to reintroduce the tiger, remains a turning point in tiger conservation with reintroductions attempted again in 2009 in Panna (MP), 2018 in Satkosia (Odisha) and Nauradehi (MP), 2023 in Madhav National Park of MP and Rajaji Tiger Reserve (Uttarakhand). There were reinforcements at Mukundara in 2018 and Ramgarh- Vishdhari in 2022 too.
The significance of relocation of villages was felt after the Sariska imbroglio in 2005. It’s the toughest task in conservation as one can understand how difficult it is to convince people residing for decades in the forest with free resource to leave their homeland. It’s a difficult social engineering process. However, progress has been made in relocating villages and despite its adversities, Sariska management has relocated five villages completely out of 29 from the core. The process is on with over 750 families relocated out of targeted 1,150 from identified 11 villages. The breeding success is bound to increase with more inviolate areas for core natal areas to breeding tigresses. The reintroduction programme for tigers launched in Sariska in 2008 has reiterated the concept that survival of species in isolated habitats, facing threats of extinction, need active management initiations like reintroduction which seems to be a good alternative in the conservation and preservation of endangered species.
But one should never forget what happened in Sariska and never undermine the threats. Together the department is gradually moving ahead in developing an enabling atmosphere for a minimum viable population in Sariska.
Though an island, Sariska must live.
Gupta, IFS, former deputy field director in Sariska during tiger reintroduction. Views expressed are personal.
