India’s tiger count now stands at 2,967, a 33 per cent jump from 2,226 in 2014, according to the tiger census released by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
Central India and Eastern Ghats have the highest number of tigers at 1,033. Madhya Pradesh has 526 tigers, the most in any State, while Maharashtra has 312. Madhya Pradesh has six tiger reserves — Kanha, Pench, Bandhavgarh, Panna, Satpura and Sanjay-Dubri.
In the western ghats, Karnataka is home to 524 tigers, while Tamil Nadu has 264. The North-East hills and Brahmaputra counted 219 tigers. In Shivalik hills and gangetic plains, Uttarakhand has the highest number of 442 tigers.
The report ‘Status of Tigers in India – 2018’, compiled by the Ministry of Environment and Forests, highlighted the importance of maintaining core habitats for breeding, expanding conservation interventions to include habitats beyond extant protected areas, maintaining connectivity and providing rigorous protection from poaching.
The 2018 survey was unprecedented both in the extent of tiger habitats that were surveyed, across 3,81,400 sq kms of forests, and in the density of camera traps used with cameras being placed within a two sq km grid.