India
- Elephants in India Photo
- Even under tremendous development pressures, India harbors an impressive array of wildlife including Asian elephants.
- ©Eleanor Briggs
- India Person Photo
- The Indian constitution specifies that “it shall be the duty of every
citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment."
- ©Jim Large
- Tiger in India Photo
- The history of WCS research in India dates to the 1960s, when the first scientific study of wild tigers was begun.
- ©Ullas Karanth
- Wildlife Crimes Unit Slideshow
- Tigers are fast disappearing in the wild, due in large part to increasing illegal wildlife trade across Asia. Our Wildlife Crimes Unit is working to support the arrest and prosecution of poachers and wildlife traders so that we can ensure a future for these cats in some of their last strongholds. Take a look at what WCS conservationists working throughout tiger territory have come across in their surveys and patrols.
- ©WCS
- Tiger Rescue Operations Photo
- Police display confiscated tiger skin with other seized animal skins and body parts in Indonesia. The country is Southeast Asia’s largest exporter of wildlife, both legal and illegal.
- ©WCS
- Tiger Rescue Operations Photo
- Many of the wildlife pelts and other items that are poached in Indonesia are part of complex trade chains, which often terminate in illegal markets in China.
- ©WCS
- Tiger Rescue Operations Photo
- The Wildlife Crimes Unit provides technical assistance to Indonesian police conducting anti-poaching raids.
- ©WCS Indonesia
- Tiger Rescue Operations Photo
- This tiger was caught in a snare in northern Sumatra, a hotspot for the big cats in Indonesia, and therefore a draw for poachers.
- ©WCS Indonesia
- Tiger Rescue Operations Photo
- In addition to tigers, tons of turtles are also exported from Indonesia on a weekly basis, and about 1.5 million wild-caught birds are sold in a market every year in Java.
- ©WCS Indonesia
- Tiger Rescue Operations Photo
- Tiger bones in Sumatra are sold as souvenirs and talismans, and ground up or boiled down for use as ingredients in traditional medicines.
- ©WCS Indonesia
- Tiger Rescue Operations Photo
- Tiger pelts are considered a status symbol by some and many wealthy people consume tiger products for purported medicinal qualities.
- ©WCS
- Tiger Rescue Operations Photo
- WCS conservationists in India calculate tiger numbers by setting up remote camera traps that photograph the big cats in the wild.
- ©Eleanor Briggs
- Tiger Rescue Operations Photo
- The camera trap technique is also used in the Russian Far East, where this Siberian tiger was photographed.
- ©WCS
- Tiger Rescue Operations Photo
- Tiger scat contains a unique DNA signature that gives researchers another way to accurately identify and count individual animals.
- ©S. Gopinth
- Tiger Rescue Operations Photo
- In the protected areas of India’s Western Ghats region, where WCS has worked for over 20 years, tiger populations are holding steady.
- ©Ullas Karanth
- Tiger Rescue Operations Photo
- Help the Wildlife Conservation Society save tigers in the wild by making a donation.
- Julie Larsen Maher ©WCS
“Jungle”—the Hindi word for wilderness in India—was adopted into the English language, and over time has come to denote lush, tropical forests everywhere. Yet India’s diverse wilderness areas encompass far more. In addition to rainforests, they include moist and dry deciduous forests, thorn forests, deserts, mangroves, grasslands, and coniferous forests in the Himalayas, not to mention a variety of freshwater and marine habitats. India’s diverse landscapes are home to numerous threatened and critically endangered species, including the Asiatic lion, Asian elephant, tiger, white-rumped vulture, Asian one-horned rhinoceros, and water buffalo. Many species of deer, antelopes, wild dogs, cats, and bears also live here. Resident primates include macaques, the hoolock gibbon, slender and slow lorises, and the golden langur—one of the world’s rarest monkeys. Besides mammals, there is a vast and diverse array of reptiles, amphibians, and birds, some of which are still unknown to science.
India has a long conservation history and began setting up national parks and protected areas in 1935. Today the country has more than 600 protected areas, including wildlife sanctuaries, national parks, and Ramsar sites—which are wetlands of global significance. Though the country is rapidly urbanizing and modernizing, its culture is rooted in a worldview that considers humans as a part of nature. The large, charismatic mammals that live in close proximity to people are an integral part of their culture.
Fast Facts
- India represents a mere 2.4 percent of the world’s area, but accounts for 7.3 percent of its faunal wealth.
- The Indian constitution specifies that “it shall be the duty of every citizen of India to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers, and wildlife and to have compassion for living creatures.”
- Even under tremendous development pressures, India harbors an impressive array of wildlife. This is mainly due to its cultural and religious significance combined with a very strong legal and constitutional framework for wildlife protection, active judiciary, and a proactive civil society sector.
- The natural heritage of India was made famous in Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book and has had a profound impact on people’s perceptions of the country.
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Challenges
Despite India’s traditional reverence for trees and animals, poverty in the densely-populated country, along with livelihoods predominantly based on natural resources, often lead to conflict between the priorities of people and the need for conservation. The greatest threats to wildlife are competition for resources and economic expansion in typically unsustainable ways to accommodate a growing human population. In recent decades, human encroachment has also posed a significant threat to the country’s wildlife. As a result, India’s tiger habitat has sharply declined, and its rhinos survive in only a few protected areas, while lions are restricted to a single site in Gir.
WCS Responds
The history of WCS research in India dates to the 1960s, when the first scientific study of wild tigers was begun. The WCS-India Program was formally launched two decades later. Today, the program focuses on the wildlife “stars,” such as tigers and elephants, in part to get the public to rally behind its efforts. WCS has done this through a systematic approach involving rigorous research, local capacity building, government consulting, and site-based conservation action.
As a result of our work to monitor tiger and their prey populations in the Malenad-Mysore Tiger Landscape in the Western Ghats—one of the world’s biodiversity hotspots—protected areas have been expanded and a strong local constituency in support of wildlife conservation has been created. In addition to our work with tigers, we are working to conserve the country’s Asian elephants by monitoring populations. WCS also monitors and studies human-wildlife conflicts to understand and mitigate them and to improve the overall conservation status of wildlife and their habitat in the Western Ghats.
WCS-India is also building a cadre of trained and professional wildlife biologists in India through an innovative graduate education program. This will help enhance the local capacity to deal with real-life conservation issues.
From the Newsroom
After revealing that tigers are roaring back in three landscapes where WCS works, our CEO penned a blog for the Huffington Post relaying his recent trip to India. While there, Dr. Samper observed a wild tigress--whose presence reflects a significant increase in tiger numbers in South India.
Despite dangerously low global numbers, tigers are rebounding in three significant landscapes where WCS operates. Success in India, Thailand, and Russia fosters hope for these iconic big cats.
Scientists and government officials from across the world come to India’s Nagarahole National Park to learn how tiger champion and WCS Senior Scientist Ullas Karanth has reversed the tide for this big cat on the brink.
WCS-Russia director Dale Miquelle discusses the unique challenges of conserving Siberian tigers.
A new study predicts that large mammals in India could go extinct unless regional conservation planning takes place. WCS recommends park expansion to ensure the country’s tigers, elephants, swamp deer, and other large mammals persevere.
As the world celebrates the Year of the Tiger, WCS assesses tiger habitat and populations across eight priority landscapes in Asia with a color-coded report.
WCS announces a new way to count tigers, based on a study that shows that fecal DNA sampling provides extremely accurate estimates of the big cats’ populations.
WCS scientists track tigers with a new 3D software program that may speed up conservation efforts. The software can also help locate the origins of confiscated tiger skins.
YouTube may be the latest conservation field tool. WCS-India has posted a series of instructional videos on the site to help researchers and park rangers monitor tigers in the wild.