Raju Bhattarai
The largest living cat species and a member of the Panthera genus is the tiger. It is most easily recognized by its orange fur with white underside and dark vertical lines. It is an apex predator that mostly targets ungulates like deer and wild boar. The tiger has adapted to a great variety of environments from the Siberian taiga, where nights can be as cold as −40 °C (−40 °F), to the mangroves swamps of the Sundarbans, where the temperatures reach more than 40 °C (104 °F).
Nepal has now easily surpassed its commitment to increase the number to 250 in 2022, as 355 tigers were counted during the last census in December.
In Nepal There are 355 tiger in different National park nowadays.
In the census of 2018,
Chitwan National Park was home to 93 tigers
Bardia National Park had 87 tigers
Banke National Park 21 tigers
Shuklaphanta National Park had 16 tigers,
and Parsa National Park had18 tigers
As per the new census, CNP has 128 tigers, Bardia National Park has 125, Banke National Park has 25 and Shuklaphanta National Park has 36 and Parsa National Park has 41.
While the increase in tiger numbers is a welcome move, say experts, there are concerns and challenges about sustaining them while avoiding human-tiger conflict which also has increased in recent years.
An ecologist with the Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation, estimates that there could be 400 tigers living in Nepal’s protected areas.
According to earlier studies, the Chitwan-Parsa region can support 175 tigers. The carrying capacity of tigers in the Banke-Bardiya ecosystem is another topic of government research.
The ecosystem’s tiger serves as an umbrella species. Its continued existence demonstrates a healthy ecology with a sizable prey base and adequate forest cover. However, threats to the animal’s survival include habitat destruction, habitat fragmentation, a decline in the number of prey species, poaching for body parts and fur, retaliatory killing, illegal hunting, and illnesses.
