New Delhi: A total of 108 people died in the country due to tiger attacks between 2019 and 2021, the government said on Monday. Replying to a question on the issue, Minister of State for Environment Ashwini Kumar Choubey, however, told the Lok Sabha that the number of human deaths due to tiger attacks in India has come down drastically in two years, with 14 persons dying in 2021 compared to 50 in 2019.
A total of 108 people died of tiger attacks in India with the maximum deaths occurring in Maharashtra, the minister said. The state-wise data shared by the minister revealed that out of the 14 deaths by tiger attacks in 2021, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh recorded five casualties each, Bihar three and Uttarakhand one. Between 2019 and 2021, Maharashtra recorded 56 deaths due to tiger attacks with 26 in 2019, 25 in 2020 and five in 2021.
In Uttar Pradesh, 17 deaths occurred during this period with eight in 2019, four in 2020 and five in 2021. The figures revealed no death due to tiger attacks in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh in recent years. Sharing the details of the government's steps to deal with the human-animal conflict, the minister said the National Tiger Conservation Authority has devised three standard operating procedures (SOPs) to deal with the issue.
The three SOPs include dispersing tigers over a larger area and managing livestock kills for them to reduce the man-animal conflict, the minister said. The third SOP involves relocating tigers to areas where their density is low so that there is no conflict in areas with higher tiger density, he added. "Also as per the Tiger Conservation Plans, need-based and site-specific management interventions are done for improving the quality of wildlife habitat for which funding is provided under the ongoing centrally-sponsored scheme of Project Tiger," he said in a written reply.
PTI
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