Wednesday, April 13 2005 08:44 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Admitting that 'poaching' has been the "cause of concern" for decreasing tiger population in the reserves, top officials yesterday (Apr 12, 2005) said that more people would be deployed in problematic areas, as experts would work towards connecting fragmented reserves.

"Though poaching has been a problem since long there were no trends available to ascertain whether it was on decline or increasing... besides working towards getting trends, the Department of Forests and Environment (DoEF) will deploy home guards, retired Army personnel and other staff to prevent poaching activities in problematic areas," Secretary DoEF Pradipto Ghosh told reporters in New Delhi yesterday.

Fragmented tiger reserves also play a role in thinning tiger population, he said adding, "We will work towards linking protected areas so that tigers can move from one reserve to the other in case of any problem."

This would solve the dual purpose as tigers could move for safer places in case of problem and would also help strengthen their gene pool, he said after the Steering Committee of Project Tiger's meeting.

On other issues, which came up during the meet, Director Project Tiger, Rajesh Gopal said "experts also discussed the issue of de-linking five reserves that are facing problems due to insurgency... but we agreed on not to de-link the reserves of Indrawati (Chhattisgarh), Nagarjuna (Andhra Pradesh), Manas (Assam), Palamu (Jharkhand) and Valmiki (Bihar) as Manas and Palamu have shown some positive signs."