25 Tigers Are Gone Missing From Ranthambore National Park; Know why

25 Tigers Are Gone Missing From Ranthambore National Park

One of the famous forest reserves in the country is the Ranthambore National Park in Rajasthan. A PTI report says that from 75 tigers in the park, 25 have disappeared in the last one year, according to the Chief Wildlife Warden Pavan Kumar Upadhyay. This is the highest report of tigers missing all at once in a single calendar year.

Between January 2019 and January 2022, only 13 tigers had been reported missing and this is a big increase. For these disappearances to be investigated the wildlife have formed a three person committee. Their job is to look at monitoring data and find out if there were any oversights by park staff. The investigation is focusing on 14 tigers that have not been seen since May to September of this year.

A government order issued on November 4 also shed light on ongoing suspicious about the disappearance of tigers from the park. It recalled that although the organization had sent reminders to the field director of the park, there hasn't been little change. As of mid-October 2024, 11 tigers have been missing for more than a year, and 14 others have shown very little recent activity on monitoring devices.

According to Pavan Kumar Upadhyay, “The committee will submit its report within two months.” Of course there is some level of gap we have seen on our monitoring that we need to close. At a recent time I have been compiling weekly monitoring reports that characterized lack of these tigers in trap camera. This matter is being taken very seriously.”

Part of the solution to reduce stress on the park has been to relocate villages from the buffer zone. However, progress has been slow, and the last successful village relocation happened in 2016.

The park officials and wildlife authorities are now under pressure to address these challenges and ensure better monitoring and management to prevent further disappearances.