A recent survey in Nepal shows the gradual increase of tiger population from 121 adults in 2009 to 198 adults in 2013. As population is increasing, the human tiger conflict is also on the rise especially in Chitwan National Park. Recently two male tigers were captured from the buffer zone area as these tigers were killing livestock. One of them was released back into the wild in the core area of the park (16 km aerial distance from the captured location) with a satellite collar. But within two weeks he went back to the place where he was captured, covering a distance of 82 km. We fear he will again cause trouble there and don't have idea what to do afterwards. Can anybody suggest the right approach to manage such tigers?
Hazing (e.g. fireworks, shooting with rubber pellets, loud bangs) works for some carnivores and I believe it is used with some success on Amur tigers in Russia. Panthera.org has a number of articles which would be of use (e.g. Goodrich, J.M. 2010 Human–tiger conflict: A review and call for comprehensive plans):
http://www.panthera.org/publications/scientific?title=tiger&field_pub_year_value=&field_author_value=&tid_1=
In fact I would say that John Goodrich would be an excellent person to ask for advice: [email protected]
Otherwise you might have a look for a relevant expert in the list of other members of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group (each member's email addresses is provided with his/her profile):
http://www.catsg.org/catsgportal/cat-specialist-group/20_the-catsg/home/index_en.htm
I'm sorry I don't know the solution to your problem but I'm sure one of the above-mentioned experts will, and I wish you the best of luck.
Thank you Damian for your suggestions! I will go through the links and contact with these experts for suggestions!
My pleasure, I hope you solve your problem with a good outcome for people and tigers.
I have 2 ideas that may be helpful. One is to check out the Elephant Pepper project -
http://www.elephantpepper.org/.
They burn peppers to create an acrid smoke that deters elephants from raiding crops. The other idea comes from Richard Turere who found a way to deter lions with lights in his home in Kenya. Here's one of the links for him on Ted.com -
http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_turere_a_peace_treaty_with_the_lions.html.
I don't know if either of these would work on tigers. I wish you success.
Tigers need to be taught to hunt by their mothers. If this tiger learnt how to hunt livestock then it is quite unlikely that it will begin hunting wild animals. So you will have to live with that, Wherever it is translocated, it will follow its habits, since it probably does not know how to hunt deer. In such a case, the decision lies with the managers, to either catch the tiger and put it in a zoo or have it destroyed. Taking it and setting it free in another tiger's territory is certainly not the solution and I am surprised that wildlife managers there even imagined that translocating the tiger 16 km would solve the problem!
Livestock kills by felines can be effectively controlled by specially trained dogs (see earlier Q&A). There is an unbroken tradition of this measure around the Mediterranean (against wolf and bear; see my Majella papers) and the approach has been recently successfully introduced in Namibia and South Africa.
However, as Peter explained once a livestock killer, always a life stock killer.
In addition, some anecdotal experience with light as deterrent (lions). Indeed head lights of my stationary car kept a pride of 6 lions out of the camp for some time. However, the lions returned later in the dark as could be seen from their spoors. Curiosity kills the cat.
- Badges
- Science method
- Similar topics
- Biological Science
- Ecology