A century ago, when Rudyard Kipling created the scheming tiger Shere Khan, who stalked a jungle much like this one, there were an estimated 40,000 tigers in India’s forests. The government announced Monday the results of a new population estimation: 1,706 tigers. Even the government’s own experts expressed alarm as they announced the figures. While they say they found more tigers (through camera-trapping, radio tracking and other means) in the most sophisticated and extensive such exercise ever undertaken in the world, the amount of the country where tigers were found was found to have declined dramatically the past four years. Read More
