The conservation efforts undertaken at Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) have led to the reserve being recognised as home to the highest population of tigers in Tamil Nadu. It is among the reserves having the highest tiger population in the entire country, too.
Among the four tiger reserves in the State, MTR has a population of 103 adult tigers, far higher than Sathyamangalam Tiger Reserve, which is home to 83 big cats, according to the report - Status of Tigers, Co-predators, Prey and their habitat in India - 2018 released by the government on Tuesday.
As per the report, the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve has the sixth highest population of resident tigers in India. Officials said that since 2014, the tiger population has increased by 10% in the core area of the reserve. The buffer zone was brought under the control of the tiger reserve in 2018, officials said.
Moreover, the report notes that the contiguous network of tiger reserves and protected areas - Nagarhole-Bandipur-Wayanad-Mudumalai-Sathyamangalam-BRT complex have an estimated population of 724 tigers. This landscape supports the highest number of wild tigers in India, according to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), Dehradun.
With such a large population of tigers, forest department officials said they were concerned that the landscape might have reached its carrying capacity with regard to the tiger population. “Though there is a concern about the problematic human-animal interactions in the future, this landscape is extremely vast, meaning predators, including tigers, could still move between different habitats due to the contiguity of the landscapes and protected areas in the Western Ghats,” said Deputy Director of MTR, S. Senbagapriya.
Field Director of MTR, K.K.Kaushal concurs, stating that due to the extent of habitat available for tigers to move into and populate, their numbers could increase further and still not lead to an increase in human-animal conflict.
As per the report, there could be anywhere between 40-50 tigers living outside the tiger reserve as well, an indication that the Nilgiris district, when taken as a complete unit, could be home to somewhere around 150-160 individual tigers, officials said.
According to top forest department officials, there is also a proposal to deem the Mukurthi National Park, currently home to 13 tigers, as a tiger reserve. “The proposal has been sent to the government,” said the official.
Threats in Western Ghats
As detailed in the report, increasing plantations of coffee, tea, rubber, as well as existing eucalyptus and wattle plantations have displaced forest cover over the decades, with encroachments also an area of concern.
“Plantations owned by private individuals and corporate sector continue to grow in the Western Ghats and constitute an important source of fragmentation of natural habitat within the hotspot…Growing populations within these settlements, in addition to changing lifestyles and consumption patterns are associated with intensifying impacts of human activities in surrounding forest areas,” the report notes.
“The major threat to contiguous natural landscapes in the Western Ghats landscape are mining, hydroelectric projects and infrastructure development. These activities, especially in proximity to Protected Areas result in irreversible habitat loss, disruption of habitat corridors and in turn have long-lasting impacts on gene flow, meta population structure and population persistence of species at the landscape scale,” it adds.
