Indian Reserve Emptied of Tigers

An entire population of tigers has vanished from a forest sanctuary in the Indian state of Rajasthan because of poaching, a police investigation has found.

After months of tiger hunting, an official inquiry launched by the country's prime minister has found no trace of the 26 big cats which were supposed to prowl the 350 square miles of dense jungle in the Sariska reserve.

The disappearance of tigers in Sariska came to light when reports surfaced that none had been sighted for six months. NGOs have questioned whether another tiger park in Rajasthan, the Ranthambore reserve, really contains the 40 tigers apparently counted by officials.

India's tiger population has shrunk from an estimated 40,000 a century ago to about 3,700 this year, a government census shows. Conservationists say even this number is artificially inflated by officials who do not want to expose the depth of the crisis for fear of losing their jobs. Many put India's tiger population at closer to 2,000.

"What we have seen is a national treasure looted by poachers. The reason is that we have neglected the reserves for years," said Valmiki Thapar, author and environmentalist.

Selling dead tigers is illegal but lucrative. Tigers are coveted for their bones, used in Chinese herbal remedies ... A single animal can fetch £25,000 on the international market.

Many say the problem lies with an ageing forestry workforce and corrupt officials. There has been no fresh recruitment for 20 years into the forest service, leaving fifty-year-old rangers to chase gangs of young, armed poachers.

The worrying thing is decades of deception and fraud by officials meant to protect the tigers, say environmentalists.

"What we have seen is the tacit agreement between corrupt officials and the poacher," says Belinda Wright, director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India. "India lost its last cheetah in the fifties when hunting was still legal. Now when millions are spent on conservation we are still losing tigers. It is a national disgrace."