Why in news?

• The killing of Avni, a conflict tigress in Yavatmal, Maharashtra, who was thought to have killed several people, led to a huge controversy.
• The issue raises questions on the drivers of human–wildlife conflict, the destiny of tigers in a human-inhabited and -modified landscape, and whether tiger reintroductions can happen in such a scenario.

What are the administrative protocols?

• Outside Tiger Reserves: The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has a standard operating procedure (SOP) for man-eating tigers and leopards.
• The basic premise thus is that tigers do not belong in landscapes that are human-dominated.
• However, it has been evidenced that tigers use a swathe of areas to disperse or to colonise new territory.
• Besides, loss of habitat connectivity in close proximity to a tiger source area owing to various land uses also foster straying of tiger near human settlements, eventually ending up as a ?man-eater.
• However, by reinforcing the word ?stray,? the idea propounded is that the tiger does not belong in the disturbed forest.
• On the issue of declaration of a man-eating animal, the WPA, 1972, and the SOP say that the chief wildlife warden has to provide written reasons as to why a tiger is called a man-eater.
• This is clearly to avoid innocent animals from being killed or removed.
• If successive trapping efforts fail, chemical immobilization of the wild carnivore should be done by an expert team having a veterinarian.

How have reintroductions been?

• The first local extinction of all tigers from a tiger reserve was in Sariska, Rajasthan in 2004.
• Tigers from Ranthambore were reintroduced there and a small breeding population now exists, but it is noteworthy that two were found poached or poisoned by people .
• Thus, while reintroduction or translocation of tigers is a bulwark for interstate cooperation, and can be a scientific or biological success, it in itself does not address questions of conflict, animosity, and the need for evolving adaptive management practices.

What are the necessary changes?

• The first change should come from the NTCA SOP itself.
• Naming tigers in places outside protected areas as strays betrays a narrow understanding of ecology.
• It also demonstrates a highly anthro-pocentric approach.
• In the case of consistent interfaces between tigers and humans, management interventions will have to optimise solutions for people and decrease encounters.
• This could include 24×7 monitoring using technology, management of corridors, building up the frontline capacity, creating village teams for reporting wild animal presence, and, an intersectoral portfolio at the landscape level akin to the ?master plan? envisaged for an eco-sensitive zone.
• A recent study by the World Wildlife Fund shows a 60% decline in species populations.
• Industrial and agriculture pressures are mounting on forested areas.

What should be done?

• Conservation that is led by scientific decisions informed only by logistics and specifications of physiology of an  animal meant for translocation, will not work.
• The scientific premise of reintroduction will have to take into account local realities, and devise appropriate managerial responses.
• The frame of science and ecological restoration or reintroduction needs to familiarise itself with the thorny issues of habitual poaching, multiplicities of land use in a given area, and human–tiger interfaces.
• The tiger cannot have a future only in the box of a tiger reserve—indeed, it is hardly doing well there.
• But, the answers to address future conflict do not lie in carrying on aggressively with traditional conservation agendas, but towards fully managing the newly emerging threats and challenges