Why MP’s rising tiger toll is more than a ‘core’ issue

Five months, 32 dead tigers and not nearly enough answers. The recent spate of big cat deaths in Madhya Pradesh, including a tigress and her four cubs in Kanha, has once again put the spotlight on the state’s famed tiger reserves. However, the real story behind the rising big cat toll may lie not inside their protected boundaries, but outside them. Forest officials said the most recent deaths have occurred outside core reserve areas, where expanding tiger populations are increasingly colliding with humandominated landscapes. Here, crude electric wire traps — often laid illegally to kill wild boar and other animals for bushmeat or to protect crops — are emerging as one of the biggest threats to big cats.
Officials said poaching networks once linked to international wildlife trade syndicates have largely been dismantled. In their place, however, a more localised and difficult-to-monitor threat has spread across the state. Electrocution now lies at the centre of the changing pattern of tiger deaths.