International Tiger Day
Rajendra P Kerkar
Tyger! Tyger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry....
Tiger legacy
These are the lines from the immortal poem written by the famous poet William Blake on the tiger. Indeed, it is a fact that striped tigers are the real natural wonders of the forests of the Indian subcontinent. About half a century ago, the World Wide Fund for Nature in Washington, D C, mentioned in a study that the forests of the Western Ghats would offer hope for tigers in India. This has proven true, as the forests of the Western Ghats, predominantly in Kerala, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Goa, and Maharashtra, have offered refuge to the big cats. However, an increasing human population, encroachment on forested areas, unchecked poaching of wild herbivores, and haphazard development activities that change land-use patterns inside the forests have posed a serious threat. These factors have intensified human-tiger conflict in the region, resulting in the deaths of both tigers and human beings.
Goa forests
In the geographically small state of Goa, very few are aware that this land has been blessed by the Western Ghats. Its forests provide the maximum quantum of water necessary for drinking, irrigation, and daily activities. Two important rivers of Goa, the Mhadei (known as the Mandovi) and the Adhanashini (known as the Zuari), are lifelines that emerge from these protected forests. Governments headed by Bhausahab Bandodkar and, later, his daughter Shashikala Kakodkar were instrumental in notifying Goa's highest forests as protected areas, including the Mahaveer Wildlife Sanctuary and Mahaveer (Mollem) National Park in Dharbandora, Cotigao Wildlife Sanctuary in Canacona, and Bondla Wildlife Sanctuary in Ponda. Later, except for Pratap Singh Rane (who notified the Dr Salim Ali Bird Sanctuary in Chorao), successive governments have made repeated attempts to denotify the major forested areas of the Mhadei and Netravali, which were originally notified by Retd Lt Gen J F R Jacob under President's rule.
Conservation efforts
Although the Mhadei and Netravali Wildlife Sanctuaries were notified in 1999, and the Supreme Court’s Centrally Empowered Committee (CEC) ordered the Goa government in 2003 not to lift even a blade of grass from these sanctuaries, thereby initiating the closure of almost 40 mining leases, the government has failed to fully acknowledge these areas as sanctuaries or make planned efforts for wildlife conservation.
Tiger census
Goa's forest department participated in the All India Tiger Estimation in 2002 and 2006 without finding concrete evidence of the big cat's presence. However, the 2010 census revealed five tigers in Goa’s wild, alongside an increase in leopards and wild dogs. This number remained constant in 2014, dropped to three during the 2018 census, but returned to five in 2022. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) earlier recommended that the Goa government enhance the legal status of the Mhadei Wildlife Sanctuary and its contiguous protected areas to create a tiger reserve. This proposal aims to secure financial and technical support for conservation, following legal mandates supported by the Supreme Court’s CEC.
Initial measures
Following the NTCA's recommendations, the Goa government took initial steps to establish anti-poaching camps, install watchtowers at strategic places in Sattari, and implement other mitigation measures.
Growing concerns
However, for the last two years, these anti-poaching camps and watchtowers have become defunct. Incidents of clearing forested areas inside the sanctuaries for horticultural plantations are continuously rising, and the special tiger task force has become non-operational. From 2009 to 2020, five tigers were reported killed, first through a snare, and later by poisoning the carcasses of domesticated animals. The culprits in the first incident went unpunished due to a lack of concrete evidence from the Forest Department. In the second case, the department has still not filed a petition to punish those involved in the deaths of the four poisoned tigers. During the summer of 2026, another tiger death was reported in a private forest at Aglote near Sacorda of Dharbandora. The Forest Department sent evidence from the decomposed carcass to the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun for investigation, but two months later, no findings have been made public.
Latest estimation
This year, the Goa Forest Department participated in the All India Tiger Estimation 2026, yet no primary findings about tiger presence have been shared. In neighboring Maharashtra, findings indicate a rise in tiger numbers from 444 to over 600. The contiguous forests of the Kali Tiger Reserve and the Bhimgad Wildlife Sanctuary in Karnataka also boast significant tiger populations.
Pending decision
It is very painful to note that instead of recognising these forested areas as a Tiger Reserve, as ordered by the Goa bench of the Bombay High Court, the state government challenged the decision, and the case remains pending before the Supreme Court. By failing to provide necessary protection to the natural habitat of tigers, the Goa government is playing foul with the present and future of this ecologically fragile state.
