Why India is the best bet for big cats

Numbers tell an astonishing tale. India is one of the most densely populated nations in the world, with 481 people per sq km. China, with only marginally less people has less than one-third of India’s density at 152 per sq km. The first five countries on the list are just city-states: Macau, Monaco, Singapore, Hong Kong and Gaza. Ranked 30^th, India is the first really large country in that list with a high density; those above and below it (Tuvalu and Curacao) are tiny.

The purpose of this peroration? To put in context, India’s feat in safeguarding and increasing its complement of critical wildlife in the face of increasing pressure on land due to population. This week India revealed that the numbers of another iconic ‘big cat’—the leopard—have risen by 8 per cent overall, from 12,852 in 2018 to 13,874 in 2022, although several states have reported a decline. The actual number would be higher as the survey did not cover all habitats.

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Also from 2018 to 2022 India’s tiger population rose by nearly 24 per cent from 2,967 to around 3,682 though the figure is probably closer to 4,000 as not all tiger areas were included in that survey. India has 75 per cent of the world’s population, most of them in 54 tiger reserves. India is also the last habitat of the Asiatic lion with around 600, all of them in Gujarat as well as 718 snow leopards—around 1/6 of the world’s total number. And all four felines’ numbers are rising here.

A valid comparison would be the state of another big cat, the jaguar, in the Americas, whose population is currently estimated to be around 170,000. Their habitat once stretched from Texas, through central America down to Argentina but is now half that area. Brazil, with a population density of only 26 per sq km, has nearly half the world’s jaguars, mostly in the Amazon jungle and the Pantanal bordering Bolivia and Paraguay. But jaguar numbers are falling.

The US has around 30,000 pumas (also called cougars or mountain lions) and the species can be found across the Americas from Canada to Chile. So far they are not close to extinction as their numbers hover around the 60,000 figure but their habitat has shrunk by over 30 per cent thanks to deforestation and agriculture. They are still legally hunted for sport in North America and in South America they are killed to protect the vast livestock ranches. It is a crisis in the making.

India now has a stake in the cheetah story once again after having been deprived of its native population by British-instigated hunting sprees. Although the project to relocate them here has had its ups and downs, if the fleet-footed but shy cheetah has a chance of surviving anywhere apart from Africa (where hunting ‘big game’ for sport remains an unconscionable revenue generator for many nations) it is surely in India, whose commitment to wildlife conservation is manifest.

Being the home of five of the world’s seven main ‘big cat’ species makes India’s responsibility particularly onerous. That India and Indians have managed to protect them despite the twin pressures of human encroachment into wildlife areas for livelihoods and continuing depredation by poachers’ points to a heartening national will. Yes, man-animal ‘conflicts’ are on the rise around India but its impact on the big cats are far below what many have expected.

Indians, by and large, have a live and let live philosophy; more so as many associate big cats with much revered deities. Unless they become man-eaters and endanger human lives, there is no deadly ire against them. Unlike westerners, ordinary Indians do not hunt grand animals for sport. Only maharajas and other courtiers adopted that dreadful practice from colonial interlocutors (and later masters) from the 18^th century onwards. Free India thinks differently.

The urge to eat and feed families drives all creatures, no matter what species. The big cats who meander into human habitations do so mainly in search of food; and humans also encroach on wildlife habitats in order to either forage or grow food as well. Finding an equilibrium where wild animals can obtain their preferred diet (humans are not generally regarded as first-choice favourite foods by the big carnivores) and humans can feed themselves too, is the challenge.

And no country is better equipped, even philosophically, to achieve that human-felidae entente than India. That is why this week’s announcement by Prime Minister Narendra Modi setting up the International Big Cat Alliance (which had been mooted last year) headquartered in India is so befitting. If these big cats are to survive and thrive, nations that they are found in have to pool resources. And this cannot no longer be left to the west as has been the norm.

Of the 96 nations with big cats, the 16 that have already shown interest in joining are Armenia, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Brazil, Cambodia, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ecuador, Kenya, Malaysia, Mongolia, Nepal, Nigeria and Peru. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, the Snow Leopard Trust and the Amur Tiger Centre are among the nine organisations that have also agreed to join. It's far short of 96 so far, but India’s G20 feats prove it has the drive to make it happen.

A collaborative platform to facilitate sharing big cat conservation practices via a common repository of technical knowledge and access to financial resources is just what is needed. Improving habitats, increasing prey populations and helping big cats survive human encroachment, illegal hunting and climate change are missions that India is uniquely well placed to lead, both practically and morally. China, significantly, is the biggest market for poached big cat parts.

That is probably why China’s efforts to conserve Amur tigers and leopards are taken with a pinch of salt although it has set up the “world’s largest” sanctuary at Hunchun called the Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park and is working with international wildlife organisations. There are now less than 540 Amur tigers left in the world and less than 100 Amur leopards. Ironically, most of these big cats are now found on the Russian side of the Manchurian Mountains.

A similar sounding organisation called Wildcats Conservation Alliance already exists and is based in London. It has apparently been focusing on five big cat countries, among them China, Russia and Indonesia. Although China lists many ‘wild cats’—calling them big would limit the range, presumably—the nation’s dubious distinction of being the biggest market for illegal big cat parts (including animals poached from India) does not inspire very much confidence.

Panthera, founded in 2006 by two Americans including the late zoologist, Alan Rabinowitz and still led mostly by Americans also focuses on wild cats. Currently headed by Jonathan Ayers, ex-CEO of the US animal diagnostics giant IDEXX Labs, it got $80 million in 2014 from a ‘global alliance’ of Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan of Abu Dhabi, Malaysian financier Jho Low, and Hemendra Kothari of DSP Blackrock India and the Wildlife Conservation Trust.

The intention of that alliance was “scientific leadership and conservation action” for 40 species of wild cats, particularly the Big Seven. The funds were earmarked for protecting and stabilizing Asian tiger and African lion populations, securing a jaguar corridor across 18 Latin American nations, community-based conservation projects in snow leopard countries, reducing poaching in cheetah and leopard countries and conservation strategy for pumas. Work continues.

Panthera, however, is not among the nine organisations that have signed up already for the IBCA, although it has been actively working with China and other nations on several projects and surveys. But given the determination of India and Prime Minister Modi to take the lead in big cat conservation, not joining would be detrimental to Panthera. Meanwhile the real panthera—the feline genus—can take heart that India will be taking up its cause big time.

The author is a freelance writer. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.