Would like to know some of the methods that caused the turn-around. "Conservation" doesn't tell me much. Great new though, are these tigers truly "wild"?
They're wild alright. One 'method' that's widely credited is the unofficial policy of shooting poachers on sight. Oldish article, but there's some more detail and context on the situation at Kaziranga (today used as a role model at other parks) here:
Fascinating read. At the start I figured it was as simple as "poachers are bad people," that they're just profiteers, but the situation is far more deep-rooted and complex, involving war in neighboring areas and the funding of the park coming from conservation of tigers, which the locals hate. So much could be solved if the people living there just had a legal way to make money.
> Would like to know some of the methods that caused the turn-around.
I would have liked to see the raw numbers for each conservation area and the methodology used for the estimation. I am sceptical of the forestry officials as at least some of them were in cahoots with poachers and the trafficking of tiger parts to East Asia.
Also, India needs corridors rather than isolated wildlife islands which is what results in lack of genetic diversity. If I recall, there was an Indian biologist who proposed a 50 year plan to slowly connect the remaining wildlife parks together with thin corridors that ran between populated areas. It would permit animals to safely traverse long routes and thus increase genetic diversity.
Apparently above 1500 individuals (out of some 2200) have been photographed using automated cameras and the rest extrapolated from there. Extrapolation methods were one of the reasons for wildly fluctuating numbers in some reserves previously.
If you're in India you probably could get access to the actual photos via a request to the right department (Ministry of Forest and Environment for a start) or in a pinch RTI.
