India Looks to Protect Tigers

August 22, 2005

Aug 5, 10:12 PM (ET)

By NEELESH MISRA

NEW DELHI (AP) - India's prime minister on Friday took

charge of a nationwide program to save the endangered

Bengal tiger, the national animal that experts say is

threatened by poachers and angry villagers.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will take over as head

of the committee controlling Project Tiger, said his

spokesman Sanjaya Baru.

Conservationists believe official estimates that 3,500

to 3,700 tigers remain in the wild in India are

grossly exaggerated and that the true figure may be

closer to 2,000. Many wildlife wardens are accused of

inflating tiger census figures for years, even as the

animals died in their preserves.

Singh on Friday also accepted recommendations of a

panel set up following reports that all the tigers at

Sariska, one of the country's main reserves, had

disappeared, said Sunita Narain, the panel's chairman.

Among them are the creation of a wildlife crime

bureau, establishment of a new methodology for the

next tiger census, and sharing the benefits of

wildlife tourism with local communities.

The panel has also recommended moving tens of

thousands of villagers from 1,500 villages in the

region to make way for more tiger habitat, a plan that

has angered the affected people.

The task force report said: " While the good news is

that not every tiger reserve in India is facing a

Sariska-type crisis, it is also clear that a

Sariska-type crisis haunts every protected area in

India. "

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