As the global wildlife conservation community came together today, to mark the Global Tiger Day, WWF Bhutan announced the sighting of six new Royal Bengal tigers in Bhutan this year.
One tiger was sighted in Jomotshangkha Wildlife Sanctuary and one in Phibsoo Wildlife Sanctuary while four were sighted in Sarpang Forest Division. With these latest sightings, Bhutan expects to contribute to the global commitment of doubling the tiger population by 2022.
Programme Officer WWF Bhutan, Kuenley Tenzin said, “Looking at the data we have at the moment, it clearly indicates that we are on the road towards achieving the goals. And even if we are unable to double the figures, we are expecting to increase the wild tiger population in Bhutan by 20 percent.”
Bhutan conducted its last national tiger survey in 2015, which estimated 103 tigers in the country. With the identification of six new tigers in different locations of the country, WWF assumes the numbers are much more.
However, protecting tigers has become challenging, especially with increasing incidences of human-wildlife conflict.
Recently, livestock predation by tigers has become rampant in places like Trongsa. This is affecting the main source of livelihood of rural people, as currently there are no compensation schemes from the Government.
Although religious sentiments and legal enforcement have kept people from retaliatory killing until now, the increase in the number of incidences, impact on their livelihoods, and fear of feeling unsafe has led the people to rapidly lose their social tolerance. And conservation officials fear this may lead to retaliatory killings.
To address these issues, the WWF Bhutan office is working with the Department of Forests and Park Services.
“ We are coming up with innovative solutions such a piloting the compensation scheme to the affected parties in the short term. For the long term we plan to involve and build community stewardship in tiger conservation through tools such as SAFE system approach,” said Kuenley Tenzin.
The Programme Officer also added poaching, habitat fragmentation and emerging threats of zoonotic diseases as some of the other major threats to tiger conservation efforts in Bhutan.
“So these are the factors that we need to take care of while protecting the tiger species,” said Kuenley Tenzin.
While the current number of tigers in Bhutan cannot be ascertained, however, Bhutan and the world would know how tiger conservation efforts in the country have contributed to global tiger numbers by mid next year. The nationwide census survey for tigers is slotted for early 2021, five years since the last survey in 2015.
Meanwhile, Bhutan is hopeful to win at least one of the two new international awards celebrating excellence in Tiger conservation launched by WWF today coinciding with the Global Tiger Day. The two categories of awards are the TX2 Award and Tiger Conservation Excellence Award, which will be open to any site in a tiger range country that has achieved remarkable measurable progress since 2010.
Samten Dolkar
