India urged to save tiger after 'record' poaching
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2000
November 28, 2000
Luke Harding in New Delhi
An environmental group accused the Indian government yesterday of failing to protect the dwindling tiger population, which it said was hurtling towards extinction on the subcontinent.
The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which has offices in London and Washington, said that at least 100 tigers in India had been killed by poachers this year, a record number.
Criminal gangs were able to operate with "virtual impunity" because senior politicians were indifferent to the tiger's "desperate" plight, the agency said.
The Indian environment minister, TR Baalu, admitted in parliament yesterday that tigers were being poached, but put the death toll so far this year at 26.
About half the world's 5,000 to 7,000 tigers are said to live in India, and the EIA argues that any scheme to protect them will fail without a dedicated wildlife preservation unit blessed by the Indian prime minister, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who has so far shown little interest in the problem.
"The tiger is on the brink of extinction. Unless Mr Vajpayee acts, history will remember him as the prime minister who allowed the tiger to die," its spokesman, Peter Richardson, said.
The problem was illustrated last month when poachers broke into a zoo in the southern city of Hyderabad and skinned a tigress. The government ordered an inquiry but no progress has been made
In January the police made their largest ever seizure of big-cat skins - four tiger and 70 leopard - which they retrieved in n Uttar Pradesh, together with 150kg (24 stone) of bones, which are usually smuggled out of India and sold for use in medicines and virility potions.
"The tiger is caught in a rapidly downward spiralling situation. This year's seizures show an escalation of the onslaught against the species," Mr Richardson added.