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India has the potential to nearly quadruple the world’s tiger population. But some experts say that that could — ironically — require killing some of them.
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By 11:00, Gopamma Nayaka knew something was wrong. Her husband, Hanumantha, should have returned from collecting firewood an hour before.
Gopamma sent for her son, who gathered a search party and headed to Bandipur Tiger Reserve, a nearby national park in south-western India. Just a few metres inside the forest, the group discovered Hanumantha’s half-eaten remains. The tiger that killed him was still sitting next to the body.
In the wake of her husband’s death, Gopamma struggled not only with grief but economic hardship. Her son had to drop out of university and move back home to support her. “My life was much better when my husband was alive,” she says. “My older son could have studied, but now both of my sons have to work. I feel insecure and dependent.”
Despite all this, Gopamma feels no resentment toward the tiger that killed her husband. Like many Hindus in India, she views humans as one piece of a complex web of life composed of all creatures, each with an equal right to existence. Nor is she worried that India’s tiger population is on the rise. Her husband’s death, she says, has nothing to do with the fact that the government is trying to save tigers: “This was my fate.”
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Gopamma Nayaka holds the portrait of her husband Hanamuantha, accompanied by her two sons, daughter and uncle (Credit: Rachel Nuwer)
Gopamma Nayaka holds the portrait of her husband Hanamuantha, accompanied by her two sons, daughter and uncle (Credit: Rachel Nuwer)
Rural Indians are unique in the world for their high tolerance for co-existing with potentially deadly wildlife. “You don’t find this in other cultures,” says Ullas Karanth, a recently retired carnivore biologist at the Wildlife Conservation Society and a leading expert on tigers. “If this kind of thing happened in Montana or Brazil, they’d wipe out everything the next day.”
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The live-and-let-live outlook has also been foundational for India’s transformation into the world’s greatest stronghold for tigers. The country holds just 25% of total tiger habitat, but accounts for 70% of all remaining wild tigers, or around 3,000 animals today.
Success does not come without cost, however. India’s protected areas have not expanded at the same rate as its tiger population, forcing some big cats to turn to human-dominated landscapes for survival. Livestock are killed and sometimes so are people.
Attacks are relatively rare, with around 40 to 50 people annually killed by tigers – compared to around 350 people killed each year by elephants. But while getting killed by an elephant is typically viewed as something that just “happens”, like a car accident, deaths caused by tigers tap into a primordial fear that, if left unresolved, can drive communities to extremes. In many places, traditional tolerance is beginning to fray, leading to riots and targeted killing of tigers.
Not every tiger is a man-eater – not even close. No exact numbers for this behaviour exist, but Karanth guesses that only 10 to 15 of the animals become persistent predators of humans each year.
Most tigers are not man-eaters; only 10 to 15 are estimated to become persistent predators of humans each year (Credit: Getty Images)