If we’re to take Banks’ quotation as gospel, news of a 30% spike in India’s tiger population as per the 3rd scientific census in the country is fantastic news for more reasons than just the most obvious one, though the fact that we’re moving further away from the big cats’ extinction was more than enough fodder to get our spirits soaring. When India’s first scientific census was conducted in 2006, the future of tigers seemed particularly bleak. Currently estimated to be home to 70% of the world’s tiger population, it dwindled to a low of just 1411 eight years ago making the debilitating effects of deforestation, prey depletion, abysmal management of India’s 47 tiger reserves and wide-spread development leading to encroachment seem impossible to combat. Add to that a 2010 BBC report that stated “fewer than 3500 tigers existed in the wild, with more than half found in India where the population is spread over more than 100,000 sq km of forest,” or headlines that warned about the killings of over 1000 tigers in a decade, and the predictive forecasts were even more pessimistic. However, nine years into the struggle, estimates counting as many as 2226 tigers roaming forest reserves across the country has washed a wave of jubilation across conservationists the world over. Warranted as the mood may be, experts in the field have been quick to warn people against complacency.

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