Live Baiting Endangering Tigers in India

Context

Feeding wild tigers against the basic tenets of conservation, has become common practice in certain popular reserves, that carries dangerous consequences.

Live Baiting

• • Live baiting involves imparting a live prey animal to a predator. Historically, British hunters used it to trap tigers for easy capturing from hidden perches.

• Use in Tiger Tourism

• • • In post-Independence India, live baiting was common in tiger reserves for tourism.
    • It allowed site visitors to witness tigers feeding, specifically in places like Sariska, till the exercise was banned for tourism in 1982 via Prime Minister Indira Gandhi.

• Continued Use in Conflict Situations

• • • Despite the ban in tourism, live baiting nevertheless maintains in conflict situations to entice huge cats like leopards, using goats or puppies.

• Present-Day Practice

• • Today, live baiting is specifically used to feed injured or aged tigers that may not hunt, usually presenting buffalo calves each week or 10 days.

Status of Live Baiting in India

• • While live baiting for tiger sightings is banned, the use of it for old or injured tigers isn’t always officially prohibited under NTCA’s (National Tiger Conservation Authority) Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), although it is “ not advisable.”

• NTCA’s Conservation Principle: Minimal Human Intervention

• • The SOP emphasizes minimum human involvement in dealing with wild tiger populations.
  • Artificial feeding goes in opposition to the precept of “survival of the fittest,” and interferes with natural selection.

Risks of Artificial Feeding

• Feeding wild tigers can also cause their habituation to humans, growing the risk of conflict— such as attacks on cattle or humans.
• Conservationists warn that baiting should simplest be a short-term, emergency method — for example, for injured tigresses with cubs.
• Even then, it must be restrained to once every two weeks and not exceed three months, to prevent tigers from becoming fearless around humans.

Misplaced Kindness vs. Natural Order

• In the wild, death because of harm, starvation, or opposition is natural. However, a wave of human sentiment — in particular publish-2005 Sariska crisis — brought about increasing human intervention under the guise of compassion.
• Human-pushed compassion, though nicely-intentioned, regularly disrupts natural wildlife dynamics — leading to dependency, lack of survival instincts, and high risks for both tigers and human beings.

A Culture of Over-Intervention

• While live baiting is restricted to reserves like Ranthambhore and Tadoba, a broader tradition of quick, emotional intervention is spreading across India’s tiger reserves.
• Visible injuries in tigers often spark tourist-driven demands for treatment, resulting in multiplied tranquilisation and clinical attention for even minor troubles.
• From trucking in prey animals to creating more water holes at some stage in harsh summers, reserves like Corbett, Bandipur, Kanha, and Pench are an increasing number of changing herbal conditions to preserve tiger populations unnaturally.
• Experts warn that excessive human care leads to unnatural survival of weaker tigers, expanded competition, and higher possibilities of human-tiger conflict.

Conclusion

• Experts emphasize that wild tigers do not need puppy-like care.
• The satisfactory conservation approach is preserving natural habitats and prey — and letting nature take its route.

Source: The Indian Express

Prelims PYQ

Q. Consider the following statements: (2018)

• The definition of “Critical Wildlife Habitat” is incorporated in the Forest Rights Act, 2006.

• For the first time in India, Baigas have been given Habitat Rights.

• Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change officially decides and declares Habitat Rights for Primitive and Vulnerable Tribal Groups in any part of India.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 and 2 only

(b) 2 and 3 only

(c) 3 only

(d) 1, 2 and 3

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