Tiger Electrocutions

What is the issue?

Increasing instances of electrocution is being one of the major threats to tiger conservation in central India.

What are the instances of tiger electrocution in central India?

• More than 50,000-sq km central Indian area consisting of protected areas, reserved forests, which includes the states of Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, southern U.P, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh.
• These regions which supports one of India’s largest tiger populations and has been identified as a global tiger conservation landscape.

• Recently a tigress in the Chimur forest range in Chandrapur district of Maharashtra was died due to electrocution.
• In 2017 alone 5 tiger were died due to electrocution in the Vidarba region of Maharashtra.
• Seven tigers have been electrocuted in Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh alone.
• Tiger death due to electrocution are also reported in Telengana-Andhra Pradesh belt near Kawal Wildlife Sanctuary in Telangana.

What are the reasons behind the electrocution?

• In a desperate attempt to prevent herbivores like nilgai (blue bulls) and wild boar from destroying their crops, farmers often set up illegal high-voltage electrical fences around their fields drawing power from electrical lines meant for home or agricultural use.
• Tigers, which use human-dominated landscapes including agricultural fields to move about, die when they come in contact with these fences.
• In some places, poachers erect live wiretraps using overhead 11 kv lines to kill animals and is generally done at night.
• Thus rampant and illegal use of high-voltage electric fences and traps is making the agricultural matrix more hostile to tiger movement, raising the importance of unbroken forest corridors.

How this incidents are reported?

• Electrocution could be a major problem in other landscapes too, but officials are probably not aware of it until they use radio collars.
• The radio collars are attached to tigers to monitor its movement and in recent reports it highlighted the threat of electrocution faced by tigers.

What are government initiatives on this regard?

• In Maharashtra alone nearly 200 villages are identified,where tiger electrocutions are also highly probable.
• In these areas, the government hopes to initiate awareness campaigns to prevent the use of electric fences.
• The campaigns will also highlight the illegal use of such fences for crop protection: stealing power from overhead lines amounts to theft.
• Solar fencing in the buffer zone of parks nearby is reported successful and there are plans to expand to non-buffer areas also.

Quick fact

Zonation system in Bio-sphere reserves 

Source: The Hindu