Tuesday, May 17 2005 16:24 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: In a startling disclosure that could raise a serious question mark over the safety of tigers, the Centre has informed the Supreme Court that as many as 411 tigers vanished from the forests across India between 1999-2003, of which 352 were accounted for by poachers.

"An independent agency was commissioned to compile and analyse the available country-level tiger poaching data over a period of five years (1999 to 2003). The data collected records 411 cases during the five years out of which 173 records relate to mortality and 238 records relate to seizures," the affidavit said.

This affidavit by Ministry of Environment and Forests was filed in response to environmentalist Ashok Kumar's application seeking extension of the CBI probe into the Sariska Tiger Reserve to other project tiger locations.

While 238 related to seizure of tiger skins and other body parts, 114 tigers were killed by poachers taking the toll of big cats due to poaching to a whopping 352.

Poachers were most active in Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra accounting for 24 and 23 tigers respectively in the last five years, the affidavit said and added 13 tigers were killed in Madhya Pradesh during the same period.

Interestingly, despite the CBI reporting that not a single tiger was left in Sariska tiger reserve, the Ministry said that only two tigers were killed by poachers in the five year period.

Only 59 tigers died a natural death in the five year period between 1999-2003 and only the States of Madhya Pradesh (15), Uttar Pradesh (12) and Uttaranchal (10) reported double-digit mortality figure.

From the 238 seizures of tiger skins and body parts in 219 cases, Madhya Pradesh topped the list with 57 cases followed by Uttar Pradesh (44), West Bengal (39), Maharashtra (19), Uttaranchal (15) and Andhra Pradesh (11), the Ministry said.

"The international border of India with Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar is relatively porus, which facilitates illegal transfer of contraband including wildlife items across these borders, the Government said.

The Steering Committee of Project Tiger in its meeting on April 12 this year (2005) listed the Tiger Reserves in States of Uttaranchal (Corbett and Rajaji National Park), Uttar Pradesh (Dudhwa), Madhya Pradesh (Kanha, Bandhavgarh, Pench and Panna), Maharashtra (Tadoba, Pench and Melghat) West Bengal (Sunderbans), Assam (Kaziranga), Tamil Nadu (Mudumalai), Karnataka (Bandipur and Nagarhole) and Rajasthan (Ranthambore) and said they deserve special attention for control of poaching of tigers.

Among the key districts and States to be kept on watch for control of illegal trade in tiger parts were all of West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh (Balaghat, Jabalpur, Katni, Shadol, Mandla and Seoni), Uttar Pradesh (Lakhimpur Kheri and Pilibhit), Uttaranchal (Haridwar, Dehradun, Nainital and Pithoragarh), Maharashtra (Chandrapur, Nagpur and Mumbai), Andhra Pradesh (Adilabad) and Delhi, it said.