We are eternally grateful for your continued support for our anti-poaching patrols during these challenging times. Thank you. The cost of living crisis seems never-ending and we know that makes life much harder for everyone. Without your help our Anti-Poaching Patrols would already be reduced to no more than the double patrolling we did back in 2020. It is something which concerns us massively, as poaching incidents of both wild tigers and their prey continue to rise across India. Your generosity has helped us to maintain treble-patrolling throughout 2023, so far, something which is absolutely vital as peak poaching season is almost upon us. Without your help, continuing additional patrolling will be impossible for the remainder of 2023! Your donations really do make a difference to ensuring that the growing wild tiger and cub population continues to get the best protection we can provide.
Every Tiger Death is a Tragedy
Since the introduction of our anti-poaching patrols almost 8 years ago we have seen a 98% decline in wild tiger deaths due to poaching and retaliatory poisonings. This in turn has helped to boost the wild tiger population to 400% of the total number of wild tigers which were in Bandhavgarh back in 2010 when Tigers4Ever was founded. We are delighted to see such an abundance of surviving tiger cubs and sub-adults but we now face the reality that the fragile habitat where these wild tigers live simply isn’t big enough for all these tigers to thrive. In recent years forest fires, severe droughts, human encroachment, mining activities and livestock grazing have all taken their toll on the fragile forest ecosystem.
We have addressed some of the impact of the droughts by providing solar-powered pump systems and wildlife waterholes which mean that there is year round water at 18 waterhole sites thanks to Tigers4Ever, and you our generous supporters. You can read more about our wildlife waterhole projects here: https://goto.gg/34315. We also help to fight forest fires by providing water in the middle of the jungle from our solar powered borewell pumps and by lending our brave anti-poaching patrols to help with the creation of firebreaks and to beat out the flames to reduce the devastating spread of fires which can quickly kill thousands of trees, insects, birds, reptiles and small mammals, including tiny tiger cubs. Right now the drought season is gripping Bandhavgarh and forest fires are a daily occurrence. This will likely continue until the end of June when pre-monsoon showers followed by heavy monsoon rains will soak the vegetation and forest floor making spontaneous fires much less likely to take hold. This morning we received a report from our team in Bandhavgarh about a brave patroller losing his motorcycle when fire engulfed it whist the patroller was working hard to quench the flames of a forest fire before it became out of control. We posted a video of the burning motorcycle on our twitter feed today:(@Tigers4ever2010). The poor patroller has now lost his only transport and it will take him a long time to save up the £550 ($700) needed to replace it. If you are able to help with a small donation, we are asking people to donate via our patrolling equipment project here: https://goto.gg/56553.
Human encroachment is always rife at this time of year as the poorest villagers try to eke out a living by collecting mahua flowers, tendu leaves and amla fruit to sell. Our patrols need to be extra vigilant to ensure that the groups of collectors don’t conceal poachers in their midst, as setting snares and traps for the tigers’ prey and tigers themselves always increases as we move towards the monsoon peak poaching season.
In the last 4 months, 3 wild tigers died from territorial fights, 2 of which were young tigresses so their loss will impact the wild tiger population for several more years too. These deaths are a tragedy in their own right, but they have been compounded by the killing of 5 more tigers, by poachers, outside the boundaries of Bandhavgarh! In each case the tigers were young adults migrating from Bandhavgarh in search of new territory when the poachers struck! Such incidents remind us just how difficult it is to keep the poachers at bay 100% of the time. We currently have neither the funds nor patrolling resources to expand the area which we patrol, as our team is already stretched to the limit with the triple patrolling workload. It is a dilemma, we don’t want to lose more migrating tigers but we also don’t want to reduce the protection in the areas we currently patrol. Just to add another 78 miles (125km) to our patrolling area will cost another £123 (US$154) per day, which right now is impossible especially with the cost of living crisis.
Fundraising to cover our existing monthly patrolling costs has been challenging throughout 2023 as each month we’ve raised less than 50% of the funds needed to keep patrols tripled and to increase them to quadrupled during the monsoon. We’ve been using our emergency funding since the end of 2022 to ensure that we can keep wild tigers and their cubs safe. Thus extending our patrolling range right now is impossible. Our emergency funds won’t last forever so we will need to consider reducing our patrolling before the end of the monsoon, if we are unable to raise the £1900 ($2400) per month we need to sustain patrolling at our current levels and quadruple levels during peak poaching season. (https://goto.gg/28767).
Our Patrollers have been busy and there is more to come
In winter, our patrollers faced some of the coldest temperatures since our patrolling began back in 2015, and persistent fog for 15 days which made visibility poor (2 metres-6 feet) and patrolling more dangerous. The warm winter jackets we were able to provide, thanks to your generosity, were an invaluable addition to the patrollers’ vital kit during the cold days and nights. The wooden canes which we provide in the patrollers’ equipment were critical protection during the foggy days as patrollers use them to poke the deep undergrowth ahead in case snares or traps are concealed below. Did you know that we provide wooden canes because they do not conduct the electric current from tethered snares? If we used metal canes, touching a tethered snare would prove fatal for our patrollers too!
After the fog had cleared came the onset of the drought season which brought different challenges for our patrols. The drought season sees increased human encroachment into the forest as villagers bring their livestock into the forest to graze; pick fruit from the trees; and cut down bamboo for fences and branches or trees to sell or burn the wood. The drought season also brings the start of the tendu leaf and mahua flower picking seasons, which increases human activity in the forest. Right now our patrollers are extra vigilant to ensure they spot strangers in the villages and forest. Poachers frequently disguise themselves as family members and join the tendu and mahua pickers in the forest so that they can set snares and traps undetected. As we recruit our anti-poaching patrollers from the villages around Bandhavgarh, it helps us to notice when strangers are around and going into the forest. Where this is the case, we increase our foot patrolling especially around power lines and the periphery of the villages so no unusual activity goes unnoticed.
The Mahua picking season is particularly testing for our patrollers as villagers set fire to piles of leaves at the base of mahua trees to cause the trees to shed their flowers. These fires often get out of control and burn huge areas of forest destroying many trees, grasslands and killing thousands of small animals and birds both of which are vital for seed dispersal and food for many other forest animals. Our brave patrollers are regularly actively involved with quashing forest fires every year from early March through to the end of June. Sometimes it doesn’t work because the wind suddenly changes direction and the fire burns the forest away from the firebreaks which our patrollers help to create. When this happens the consequences are devastating. Last year forest fires raged all around Bandhavgarh from March until early July. Monitoring and fighting the fires takes foot patrollers away from their patrol beats where they would be checking for snares and traps. Thus maintaining triple patrolling right now is essential to ensuring that we can protect both the wild tigers and their forest home.
Some unseasonal heavy rainfall at the end of April curtailed the mahua picking as the rains damaged the flowers and reduced the yield. The rains brought cooler temperatures too with a fall from 40°C (104°F) to 20°C (68°F) in a matter of minutes. The rains also triggered the premature hatching of many insects and an awakening of venomous snakes. Snakes are usually less active during the hot drought season, but since the rains snakes have been appearing in peoples’ homes and vehicles, in addition to being more active in the forest. As a consequence more snake rescue kits are needed before the monsoon rains arrive, something which we are hoping to raise funds for in the coming weeks. We’re also doing our best to provide more patrollers with life-saving waterproof jackets and trousers before the onset of the monsoon rains.
Increasing Awareness
In the next few months, our patrollers will also be involved in the distribution of safety information cards and training, as we seek to reduce human-wildlife conflict through educational resources and restore a harmony where people and wildlife can co-exist. There will be more news about this initiative in our next education project report too.
These laminated forest safety cards will provide information in a format similar to the airline safety cards which many of us will be familiar with. We have added words (bilingual) as well as pictures so that villagers will be able to recognise these words on safety and access notices which are posted at the entrances to the forest. We also want to develop an audio resource which can be delivered by volunteers in the villages as part of a wider awareness and environmental protection programme.
Patrollers need more help too
As the monsoon rains fall, patrolling conditions will become more treacherous as roads and tracks are flooded and venomous snakes will be more active! During this time, waterproof clothing and knee length waterproof boots are vitally important for patroller safety. There are still more than 600 brave patrollers without this vital equipment, so we must work hard to raise enough funds to equip as many as possible in the next three months! To provide this vital equipment for all 600 patrollers we need to raise another £6600 (£8250) as quickly as possible. This would help us to ensure that every patroller can carry out their vital duties when the monsoon rains arrive (https://goto.gg/56553).
Without this vital equipment, patrolling will cover shorter distances as the flood waters rise: leaving wild tigers and their cubs vulnerable to poachers’ snares and traps. Where possible we’re try to get each set of waterproofs, including boots, shared by two patrollers (one day shift/one night shift) but this isn’t a long term solution as the flood conditions can persist for days on end. If you can help, each set of waterproof clothing costs just £11 ($14) https://goto.gg/56553 and will not only keep a patroller protecting wild tigers for 12 hours per day but will provide much needed employment for up to 6 people living with wild tigers who make and distribute the clothing and boots too.
Wildlife and Human Casualties
Over the last few months we saw an increase in both human-wildlife conflict and Tiger wildlife conflict around Bandhavgarh. This resulted in deaths of both leopards and humans caused by wild tigers; sadly tigers have been killing each other too. Since our last report, 5 leopards were killed by wild tigers including 2 cubs and a breeding pair. Two different tigers killed a 15 year old boy and an 18 year old boy in separate incidents, and another tiger badly mauled a senior ranger who was conducting his morning patrol (thankfully he has now recovered). In the last few weeks there have been 2 more people killed by different wild tigers as they entered the forest in twilight hours. We also recorded 3 wild tiger deaths due to territorial fights. As the wild tiger population continues to grow, the struggle to find sufficient territory to call home will intensify, and incidents like these will increase in frequency, until more water and habitat can be provided to curtail the conflict. We are currently in the process of providing two more permanent wildlife waterholes, including a large waterhole in the buffer forest where all seasonal water sources are already bone dry. We hope that this waterhole will be completed in the next few weeks, as it will benefit at least 7 tigers and their cubs, plus wild elephants. We are also surveying another dry area of forest in the Kallwah core forest to provide year round water in a large waterhole midst the territory of the endangered barasingha deer herd. Hopefully, we can start work on that project too within the next few weeks as the drought season is already here and forest fires are already faced almost daily by our patrollers (https://goto.gg/34315).
When these incidents are coupled with the increased risk of poaching activities, it means that our patrollers need to be on high alert at all times. We must, therefore, ensure that we can maintain a minimum of tripled patrolling especially throughout the next six months when we know that the poachers will be very active. https://goto.gg/28767.
Making a Difference
Thanks to your continued support, we cover an extra 1000 km (624 miles) of wild tiger territory per month with our trebled patrols. Without the vital equipment needed to beat the monsoon weather conditions, this could reduce until the drier weather returns. During wet weather, it is essential to ensure sufficient time to search for snares; traps and signs of poisoners around forest areas where human encroachment is widespread as poachers are more active. We also need to maintain our patrols around the periphery of villages where crop raiding and livestock killing is also rife. Our increased patrolling helps us to curb human encroachment into wild tigers’ territories, and allows us to provide safety advice for those trying to protect their crops and livestock from wandering elephants and tigers respectively.
With almost half of the 60 tiger cubs born since the lockdown now reaching young adult stage, we have many more wild tigers to keep safe, so your help is crucial. Your gift today, however large or small can make a huge difference as to whether Bandhavgarh’s wild tigers can survive the unprecedented threats they face:
Making your Gift Count Twice or More
Your new online monthly gift of £12 (US$15) per month won’t just help us to pay an anti-poaching patroller protecting wild tigers for 35 days per year; it will also qualify for a 100% match bonus on the first donation amount if you keep donating for 4 months or longer. That means when you donate at £12 (US$15) monthly in month 4 we will receive an extra £12 (US$15) from GlobalGiving to help us save wild tigers. Thus there has never been a better time to start a new monthly donation than now. (https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/saving-bandhavgarhs-wild-tigers/?show=recurring). On 12 July 2023, GlobalGiving is adding matched funding bonuses to new online donations we receive which are above $100 (£80) and up to $1000 (£800) (whilst matched bonus funding lasts); donations above $1000 (£800) will receive $500 (£400) bonus matched funds regardless of the donation value: https://goto.gg/28767. This is an excellent time to give, especially if you want to make a larger donation. Nonetheless we welcome all donations little or large as even a £5 or $10 donation can make a huge difference to keeping wild tigers safe. Please note that we are asking you to donate to our main anti-poaching patrols project https://goto.gg/28767 as this project https://goto.gg/34704 is almost fully funded and will close soon.
Without our help, we know that more wild tigers will die; and more humans will be mauled or killed due to encroachment or human-tiger conflict. Sadly, with every human life lost comes another threat to the wild tiger’s survival in the form of retaliation; thus we must protect both if we are to ensure that wild tigers can have a wild future.
Please don’t hesitate if you can help, your donation can be the difference between life and death for a wild tiger, as it helps to increase our patrolling when it is most needed. Every tiger and every tiger cub counts. Thank you for making our fight against poachers, the changing climate and human-animal conflict possible. (https://goto.gg/28767)..
Links:
In these challenging times as the cost of living crisis grips many of us, we are eternally grateful for your continued incredible support, so thank you from the bottom of our hearts. Without your help we’d already be reducing our Anti-Poaching Patrols to ensure that we can keep going throughout 2023. Your generosity helped us to undertake treble-patrolling during the festive season, when poachers often strike. Without your help this additional patrolling would be impossible. Your donations ensure that the growing wild tiger and cubs population is getting the best protection we can currently provide.
Colder Winters are Here
Since 2019, we have seen winter temperatures plummet to record low levels in Bandhavgarh. Early morning and overnight temperatures now fall as low as 2°C (35°F) which is some 5°C (12°F) lower than the previous average for this time of year. In the last three weeks this has resulted in dense foggy conditions with visibility as low as 2 metres (6.5 feet) which makes patrolling conditions very dangerous for on-foot patrolling. Our patrols need to be extra vigilant at these times to avoid stepping into poachers’ snares and traps, or stumbling upon a resting or feeding tiger or leopard. Greater reliance is placed on sensory detection, such as the aroma of a fresh or older kill, the detection of fresh pugmarks, the rustling of leaves or grasses, etc. All our patrollers are issued strong wooden canes which are extremely useful for checking dense undergrowth for tethered or traditional snares. It’s hard to appreciate sometimes that a simple wooden cane costing less than £10 (US$13) can save an anti-poaching patroller’s life or leg! Such equipment is absolutely vital year round.
The colder weather has other impacts on our patrollers too. This winter, we provided new thicker heavy duty warm jackets for 205 (of more than 1000) anti-poaching patrollers, to supplement the warm socks and winter boots previously provided. This is a start, but we still need to raise a further £16000 (US$20800) to enable the remaining 800 patrollers, who struggle to cope with the biting cold whilst on their foot patrols, to have warm winter jackets too. These brave men and women risk their lives to keep wild tigers safe, and rarely complain, but the cold weather is getting to them now. We need to raise these funds this year so we can ensure that every patroller can carry out their vital duties as the freezing temperatures persist.
Without this vital equipment, vital patrolling will cover shorter distances as the temperatures plummet: leaving wild tigers and their cubs vulnerable to poachers’ snares and traps. If those of you who live in northern Europe, or the Northern US states and Canada can imagine walking around outside on a January morning in just a T-shirt and summer trousers, then staying outside dressed like that for up to 12 hours, it will give an indication of the challenges face by the anti-poaching patrols right now. We think that many of you would go inside or put a coat on long before the first hour was up, let alone 12 hours? That’s why we can’t expect the patrollers to stay outside all night in the freezing cold either. Where possible we’re trying to get each jacket shared by two patrollers (one day shift/one night shift) but this isn’t a long term solution as the colder temperatures persist for longer each day. If you can help, each heavy duty warm winter jacket costs just £20 ($25) https://goto.gg/56553 and will not only keep a patroller protecting wild tigers for 12 hours per day but will provide much needed employment for up to 4 people living with wild tigers who make and distribute the jackets too.
Wildlife and Human Casualties
Over the last two months we have witnessed an increase in both human-wildlife conflict and Tiger wildlife conflict around Bandhavgarh. This conflict has resulted in deaths of both leopards and humans by an increased population of wild tigers. The end of November was a particularly worrying time as a tiger killed an 18 year old boy who wandered into the core forest alone. During the same weekend two different tigers killed 3 leopards in territorial battles. Then last weekend, in another area of Bandhavgarh, a tiger killed a young boy of 15 as he walked through a farmed field to reach his father at dusk. In a separate incident, a tiger killed a family of four leopards including both parents and two cubs. As wild tiger populations grow and struggle to find sufficient territory to call home, incidents like these will become more commonplace until more water and habitat can be provided to reduce the conflict. We are currently in the process of providing two more permanent wildlife waterholes, although work has been halted in recent weeks due to foggy conditions threatening the safety of the workers and the rangers who provide protection whilst work is underway. As soon as the temperatures increase, and the foggy days are gone, work will resume to complete these waterholes, and identify further new sites https://goto.gg/34315.
When these incidents are coupled with the increased risk of poaching activities, it means that our patrollers must be on high alert at all times. We must, therefore, ensure that we can maintain a minimum of tripled patrolling especially throughout the winter period when poachers are notoriously active. https://goto.gg/28767.
Increasing Awareness
Last year we recruited more volunteers, including some in India, who’ve helped to distribute education packs to the children in rural villages and to gather new ideas to help educate these children about the importance of wild tigers and their forest home. We continue to work with our new volunteers to ensure that learning about the forest and the wildlife within it will be fun for the children who will provide the next generation of wild tiger protectors.
We’re also developing new volunteering partnerships which will enable us to create bi-lingual educational resources with infographics on forest safety and protection for all age groups, to be distributed by our anti-poaching patrollers when patrolling around villages and encountering villagers in the forest. We also hope to develop an audio resource which can be delivered by volunteers in the villages as part of a wider awareness and environmental protection programme.
What Else are We Doing to Help?
After seven and a half long, hard years of patrolling, some of the vital patrolling equipment and clothing we’ve provided to help our anti-poaching patrols to keep wild tigers safe has worn-out. We managed to provide urgently needed waterproof clothing and boots to protect 400 anti-poaching patrollers during the heavy monsoon rains. However, we still need to raise funds for a further 600 sets of waterproof clothing and boots (£12150/US$14900), before the onset of the next monsoon. Any assistance you can give will be most welcome: https://goto.gg/56553. Even the smallest donation will be a huge help in these difficult times.
Making a Difference
Thanks to your continued support, we can cover an extra 1000 km (624 miles) of wild tiger territory per month with our trebled patrols. Without the vital equipment needed to beat the current weather conditions, this may reduce until the warmer weather returns. During the colder weather, it is essential to ensure sufficient time to search for snares; traps and signs of poisoners around forest areas where human encroachment is widespread as poachers are more active. We also need to maintain our patrols around the periphery of villages where crop raiding and livestock killing is also rife. Our increased patrolling helps us to curb human encroachment into wild tigers’ territories, and allows us to provide safety advice for those trying to protect their crops and livestock from wandering elephants and tigers respectively.
With more than 60 tiger cubs under 18 months old, we have many more wild tigers to keep safe, so your help is crucial. Your gift today, however large or small can make a huge difference as to whether Bandhavgarh’s wild tigers can survive the unprecedented threats they face:
Making your Gift Count Twice
Your new online monthly gift of £12 (US$15) per month won’t just help us to pay an anti-poaching patroller protecting wild tigers for 35 days per year; it will also qualify for a 100% match bonus on the first donation amount if you keep donating for 4 months or longer. That means when you donate at £12 (US$15) monthly in month 4 we will receive an extra £12 (US$15) from GlobalGiving to help us save wild tigers. Thus there has never been a better time to start a new monthly donation than now. (https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/saving-bandhavgarhs-wild-tigers/?show=recurring). As this project is nearly funded, we are asking for new donations to our main anti-poaching patrols project: https://goto.gg/28767 which will continue for as long as we are able to do the patrolling.
Without our help, we know that more wild tigers will die; and more humans will be mauled or killed due to encroachment or human-tiger conflict. Sadly, with every human life lost comes another threat to the wild tiger’s survival in the form of retaliation; thus we must protect both if we are to ensure that wild tigers can have a wild future.
Please don’t hesitate if you can help, your donation can be the difference between life and death for a wild tiger, as it helps to increase our patrolling when it is most needed. Every tiger and every tiger cub counts. Thank you for making our fight against poachers, the changing climate and human-animal conflict possible. (https://goto.gg/28767).
Links:
Thank you for your incredible support for our Anti-poaching Patrols throughout the last few months. Your generosity has helped us to increase to quadruple-patrolling during the peak poaching monsoon season, and from October we will resume triple-patrolling as the new standard for 2022. Without your help this would be impossible. Your donations help us to ensure that the growing wild tiger and cubs population is getting the best protection we can currently provide.
Stranger Things
It has been the strangest monsoon period since the formation of Tigers4Ever back in June 2010. In fact from a climate perspective 2022 has been a very strange year. The drought season was the longest, lasting well into July this year, which also meant forest fires persisted for longer than usual too. July is usually the wettest month, the paddy fields surrounding Bandhavgarh prepared for the heavy rains and flood waters so vital to produce the rice crops which help to satiate both a domestic and global demand. No rains have meant no rice! The news on NDTV has forecast a global shortage of rice for 2023!
So what has failing rice crops got to do with wild tigers? More than you would imagine, the farming community around Bandhavgarh depends on three major sources of income throughout the year: rice, wheat and milk. When one of these fails, the loss of income has devastating impacts on a rural community, which already loses between 35 -65% of its annual crops to forest dwelling herbivores which raid human food and water resources. When this is coupled with wild elephant raids which can destroy a crop in a night, it becomes clearer to see why human-wildlife conflict poses one of the biggest threats to wild tiger survival.
People can become desperate for replacement income to feed themselves and their families, so they turn to the forest to plunder resources for anything they can eat or sell to survive. Commonly, this is harvesting fruit like mangoes and amla fruit, but there are more sinister elements too. Snare trapping jungle fowl, wild boar, deer, hares and other herbivores to sell or consume the meat, can also lead to predator deaths as unsuspecting tiger cubs and leopards fall foul of these traps. One of the stranger things to happen during this monsoon season has been the cutting down of tendu trees, for wood to sell or burn. Tendu trees are important for the rural community around Bandhavgarh because their leaves are used to make Indian tobacco and are harvested in huge numbers during the first half of the year. Thus cutting down these income providers makes no sense at all.
Another worrying trend this monsoon season has been the encroachment into the core forest to raid bamboo and sand for farming gains. The bamboo has been used to repair or create hedges around the paddy fields to try to prevent wildlife crop raiding, whilst sand has been used to fill the cattle proof trenches surrounding the forest. These cattle proof trenches are there to prevent domestic livestock from grazing in the core forest and to reduce the incidents of livestock (and their owners) being killed by predators including wild tigers. What the culprits don’t seem to understand is when the cattle eat the food in the core forest it increases the likelihood of wild animals raiding the human crops. Thus education plays a huge part of our patrollers’ work.
Something Different
This year we have recruited more volunteers, including some in India, who have helped to distribute education packs to the children in rural villages and to gather new ideas to help educate these children about the importance of wild tigers and their forest home. We will continue to work with our new volunteers to ensure that learning about the forest and the wildlife within it will be fun for the children who will provide the next generation of wild tiger protectors.
We’re also developing a new volunteering partnership which will enable us to create bi-lingual educational resources on forest safety and protection for all age groups, including adults, so that our anti-poaching patrollers can distribute these when patrolling around villages and encountering villagers in the forest. We also hope to develop an audio resource which can be delivered by volunteers in the villages as part of a wider awareness and environmental protection programme.
What Else are we Doing to Help?
Work on our latest project to install two more permanent wildlife waterholes in the Kithauli-Biruhli has been hampered somewhat by the monsoon rains, but we hope to complete this in the next few weeks. On completion, these waterholes will provide year-round water in forest areas usually parched dry by drought before the end of January each year. Once complete, it will bring the total number of Tigers4Ever waterholes to 14. Importantly, these waterholes will help to reduce the pressure on human water resources and thus reduce human-wildlife conflict. Tigers4Ever waterholes already provide year round water for more than two thirds of Bandhavgarh’s wild tigers and their prey. You can read more about our waterholes project here: Two More Waterholes and Something New July 2022 (tigers4ever.org).
After six long and hard years of patrolling, some of the equipment and clothing we provided to help anti-poaching patrols to keep wild tigers safe has started to wear-out and fail. More than 1000 anti-poaching patrollers urgently needed waterproof clothing and boots to protect them during the monsoon rains. Thanks to an urgent appeal and a kind donation from our new corporate partners, the Tiger Chi Community, we have been able to provide waterproof clothing boots and powerful hand-held flashlights for 400 patrollers. We still need funds for a further 600 sets of waterproof clothing and boots (£12150/US$14900), however, with the cooler winter months ahead, we now need your help to provide 1000 warm winter jackets so patrolling can continue on the coldest days and nights. To equip every patroller with a warm winter jacket will cost £20000 (US$25000); we only have sufficient funds to provide 55 warm jackets right now so any help will be most welcome: https://goto.gg/56553. Even the smallest donation will be a huge help in these difficult times.
Patrols on High Alert
With the strange monsoon pattern and its impact on the rural community, our anti-poaching patrollers will need to be on high alert once more as the risk of encroachment and poaching increases again. We know that many poachers who lay the snares and traps are just poor people desperate to feed their families, and they’re not the ring leaders who facilitate the trade in wild tiger body parts nor do they make huge sums from their heinous acts, but their actions still impact the wild tiger population either directly (tigers snared) or indirectly (tigers’ prey snared). Our increased patrolling, which enables us to protect an extra 1000 km (624 miles) per month of wild tiger territory, is vital to avoid wild tiger deaths. Without your support, this would be impossible, so thank you on behalf of the wild tigers we’re keeping safe. If you wish to support our anti-poaching patrols going forward, please donate at: https://goto.gg/28767 as we are now focussing our anti-poaching fundraising efforts on that project going forward.
Making a Difference
Thanks to your continued support, we can cover an extra 1000 km (624 miles) of wild tiger territory per month with our increased patrols. This is vital to ensure sufficient time to search for snares; traps and signs of poisoners around forest areas where human encroachment is widespread; and around the periphery of villages where crop raiding and livestock killing is rife. Increased patrolling helps us to curb human encroachment into wild tigers’ territories, and allows us to provide safety advice for those trying to protect their crops and livestock from wandering elephants and tigers respectively.
With more than 50 tiger cubs born since the start of the pandemic, we have many more wild tigers to keep safe now. So we still need your help. Your gift today, however large or small can make a huge difference as to whether Bandhavgarh’s wild tigers can survive these unprecedented threats:
Making your Gift Count Twice
Your new online monthly gift of £12 (US$16) per month won’t just help us to pay an anti-poaching patroller protecting wild tigers for 35 days per year; it will also qualify for a 100% match bonus on the first donation amount if you keep donating for 4 months or longer. That means when you donate at £12 (US$16) monthly in month 4 we will receive an extra £12 (US$16) from GlobalGiving to help us save wild tigers. Thus there has never been a better time to start a new monthly donation than now. (https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/saving-bandhavgarhs-wild-tigers/?show=recurring).
Without our help, we know that more wild tigers will die; and more humans will be mauled or killed due to encroachment or human-tiger conflict. Sadly, with every human life lost comes another threat to the wild tiger’s survival in the form of retaliation; thus we must protect both if we are to ensure that wild tigers can have a wild future.
Please don’t hesitate if you can help, your donation can be the difference between life and death for a wild tiger, as it helps to increase our patrolling when it is most needed. Every tiger and every tiger cub counts. Thank you for making our fight against poachers, the changing climate and human-animal conflict possible. (https://goto.gg/28767).
Links:
Thank you for your incredible support for our Anti-poaching Patrols throughout the first 5 months of 2022. Your generosity has helped us to continue with increased patrolling as the new standard for 2022. Without your help this would be impossible. We can now ensure that the growing population of wild tigers and cubs is getting the best protection we can currently provide.
Triple patrolling the new standard outside the monsoon period and quadruple patrolling the new standard during the three months of the monsoon season, for 2022-23. From 01 May 2022, we increased the wages our patrollers receive by 14% to help them cope with rising costs post pandemic. Our transport costs associated with getting the patrollers to the remotest parts of the forest have also increased due to rising fuel prices. We’re trying our best to keep our costs down, where possible, but some increases are beyond our control. The new costs are now reflected in our main anti-poaching patrols project (https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/saving-bandhavgarhs-wild-tigers/) but won’t be reflected in the costs for this project as it is almost fully funded and will close down once we’ve contacted our monthly donors to offer them an alternative if they wish to continue to help.
The drought season is at its peak in Bandhavgarh. Temperatures are scaling new heights with each passing day leading to an increased risk of spontaneous fires and those caused by human carelessness. Our patrols are always alert at this time of year to fire risks, seeking to identify them early and extinguish them before they get out of control. Sadly, it isn’t always possible; you may have seen recently on our Twitter feed that a fire decimated 50 hectares (500,000 square metres) of tiger forest just over a week ago. Despite valiant efforts, the fire raged for 4 days and 3 nights before it was under control. One year on from the devastating fires at Easter 2021, there are still areas of forest scorched by the fires, devoid of life, needing a breath of new life from seeds dispersed by insects, birds and other animals. It could take years for the recovery to start, which makes it even more important to protect the remaining forest from new fires. Wildlife waterholes are vital to fighting forest fires where fire vehicles cannot access jungle trails. (https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/water-for-bandhavgarhs-tigers/).
What we are Doing to Help
We are working hard to install at least two more permanent wildlife waterholes to restore water in forest areas already parched dry by drought before the end of June. If we can complete these in the next few weeks it will bring the total number of Tigers4Ever waterholes to 13. We had hoped to complete our twelfth waterhole already but we experienced damage to the borewell drill at two preferred waterhole sites and have had to survey other alternatives. You can read more about this in our waterholes project report here: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/water-for-bandhavgarhs-tigers/reports/?subid=188601.
Our patrols are also kept busy with aiding the early identification of forest fires to ensure these are controlled/quenched as quickly as possible. Our brave patrollers have years of experience in quenching forest fires and limiting their spread, but every fire where they spend hours fighting flames takes them away from essential patrolling duties. It is essential, therefore, to keep our anti-poaching patrols tripled to ensure wild tigers and their cubs are safe. We were fortunate enough to receive grant funding from the Marjorie Coote Animal Charity Trust which enabled us to undertake tripled patrolling in March. We grateful to receive further Grant funding from the Jean Sainsbury Animal welfare trust, which will enable us to undertake quadruple patrolling during the monsoon which given the increased risk of poaching is absolutely essential.
It is quite difficult for our patrollers right now, with daily temperatures in Madhya Pradesh already reaching 48°C (118°F), which is higher than normal for this time of year. With these temperatures set to persist for a few more weeks coupled with 94% less pre-monsoon rains across the state, our patrols will need to exercise caution to avoid heatstroke especially whilst trying to prevent the spread of forest fires. All our patrollers are equipped with refillable water bottles which are essential kit right now. Our patrols call at forest department patrol camps, where Tigers4Ever has provided safe drinking water tanks, to refill their water bottles whilst in the field.
Tendu and Mahua Collection
The tendu leaf (Indian tobacco) and mahua flower (used to make Indian alcohol) picking season is well underway. Often the Mahua pickers start fires to create demarcation zones, which if left unattended can cause widespread forest fires. Villagers enter the forest in droves in the early morning to collect the tendu leaves and mahua flowers, which is a very dangerous time of day as tigers are more active at dawn and dusk as they hunt whilst the temperatures are lower. Over the last few years, many more villagers have turned to collecting leaves or flowers as a source of income because the pandemic robbed them of their livelihoods. This means more people in the forest and thus a greater risk of human-animal conflict, but it also means that poachers can seize the opportunity to enter the forest under the guise of being tendu or mahua collectors.
It’s not just the collection of produce to sell which drives villagers into the forest in the drought season; it is the need to feed themselves and their livestock too. As the summer months progress and the land becomes parched, herders take their livestock into the forest to graze, something which can cost the lives of both the farmers and their animals. Just over a month ago we received news that a villager had been killed by a tiger as he grazed his cattle in the core forest. The farmer had placed himself and his cattle between a tigress and her young cubs. The tigress did what was natural and attacked the man, striking him to the ground with a single blow from her extended claws. His survival chances were slim and he died from the wounds her claws inflicted.
There are no winners in such situations, the family is left without its main income earner and the angry villagers often call for action against the tigress to prevent future attacks. Education is key to both avoiding future tiger attacks and retaliation against the tiger. Despite the best efforts of our patrollers to give safety advice and the Tigers4Ever safety notices at key entry points in the forest, some villagers choose to ignore the advice and can lose their life.
Patrols on High Alert
Our anti-poaching patrollers are recruited from villages around Bandhavgarh so they know the locals and regular collectors well, having encountered them over the last 7 years. This helps to reduce the risk of strangers (poachers) entering the forest unnoticed and keeps our patrols are on high alert when they encounter an unfamiliar face. This is something which has become increasingly important since the pandemic when so many daily waged Indians lost their jobs in towns and cities before returning to rural communities to eke out a living.
Our patrols have needed to be on high alert throughout the last three years as wild tiger poaching increased across India. Just last week, our patrols received a stark reminder of the dangers they face when three policemen were shot dead by a gang of blackbuck poachers in the nearby district of Guna. The economic impact of the pandemic is still being felt in India and beyond, which continues to increase the likelihood of the poorest most desperate families turning to poaching for an income.
We know that many of the poachers who lay the snares and traps are just poor people desperate to feed their families, they’re not the ring leaders who facilitate the trade in wild tiger body parts nor do they make huge sums from their heinous acts. That’s why our increased patrolling, which enables us to protect an extra 1000km (624 miles) per month of wild tiger territory, is vital. Without your support, this would be impossible, so thank you on behalf of the wild tigers we’re keeping safe. If you wish to continue to support our anti-poaching patrols please donate to: https://goto.gg/28767 as this project will continue throughout the years to come.
Making a Difference
Thanks to your continued support, we can cover an extra 1000 km (624 miles) of wild tiger territory per month with our increased patrols. This is vital whilst forest fires continue to ensure sufficient time to search for snares; traps and signs of poisoners around forest areas where human encroachment is rife; and around the periphery of villages where crop raiding and livestock killing is rife. Increased patrolling helps us to curb human encroachment into wild tigers’ territories, and allows us to provide safety advice for those trying to protect their crops and livestock from wandering elephants and tigers respectively.
With more than 50 tiger cubs born since the start of the pandemic, we have many more wild tigers to keep safe now. So we still need your help. Your gift today, however large or small can make a huge difference as to whether Bandhavgarh’s wild tigers can survive these unprecedented threats:
Making your Gift Count Twice
Your new online monthly gift of £12 (US$17) per month won’t just help us to pay an anti-poaching patroller protecting wild tigers for 35 days per year; it will also qualify for a 100% match bonus on the first donation amount if you keep donating for 4 months or longer. That means when you donate at £12 (US$17) monthly in month 4 we will receive an extra £12 (US$17) from GlobalGiving to help us save wild tigers. Thus there has never been a better time to start a new monthly donation than now. (https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/saving-bandhavgarhs-wild-tigers/?show=recurring).
Without our help, we know that more wild tigers will die; and more humans will be mauled or killed due to encroachment or human-tiger conflict. Sadly, with every human life lost comes another threat to the wild tiger’s survival in the form of retaliation; thus we must protect both if we are to ensure that wild tigers can have a wild future.
Please don’t hesitate if you can help, your donation can be the difference between life and death for a wild tiger, as it helps to increase our patrolling when it is most needed. Every tiger and every tiger cub counts. Thank you for making our fight against poachers, the changing climate and human-animal conflict possible. (https://goto.gg/28767).
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We were absolutely blown away by your incredible support from Giving Tuesday (30 November 2021) until the end of 2021. Your generosity will help us to make increased patrolling the new standard in 2022, which we think it is a fitting tribute for the Year of the Tiger. Thank you so very much for making this possible.
In India, which is home to two thirds of the world’s last remaining wild tigers, statistics from the NTCA (National Tiger Conservation Authority – formerly Project Tiger) showed that wild tiger deaths in India alone had risen to the highest level for ten years. Poaching gangs across India have maximised the chance during the COVID lockdowns to increase their illicit activities. Even with our patrols tripled, poachers struck in Bandhavgarh killing the Banvai female and dumping her carcass in an open well at the end of the monsoon. It was soul destroying to know that despite our significant efforts to comb the forest for snares and traps so wild tigers can walk freely, one such snare had gone under the radar and claimed the life of a precious wild tiger. That is why we decided at our last Board of Trustees meeting just a few days ago that increased patrolling will have to be the new standard if we are to prevent this happening again. A decision we couldn’t have taken without your generosity, so thank you again.
Tiger Census
Over the last few months of 2021, the all India Tiger census was being carried out across the 51 protected areas for wild tigers. Known corridors for tiger movement, other sanctuaries and forests where wild tigers are known to roam were also combed by foot patrollers looking for wild tigers and evidence of their territories. Camera traps were set along geographical transect lines to monitor not just how many different tigers but to capture their images for future identification too. Scat and hair samples, from trees used as tiger scratch posts, are also collected as part of the identification process too. It is important to ensure that the same tiger isn’t counted multiple times as wild tigers have very large territories with male wild tigers known to patrol and scent mark around 7300 km (4536 miles) around their territory in a year! Dependent on the availability of prey and water, wild tiger territories can vary from 20 sq. km (7.7 sq. miles) in size to 400 sq. km (154.5 sq. miles), which covers a lot of camera traps and trees!
The hard work continues as the collected data seeks to eliminate duplicates and confirm the current numbers of wild tigers inside and outside the protected areas. We are hopeful, that despite an increase in Tiger-Tiger conflict and human-tiger conflict during the pandemic, that the tiger census will confirm at least the same number of wild tigers in Bandhavgarh as in the 2018 Tiger census. You may wonder why we don’t think that the number will increase massively again as it did last time. With 42 cubs born during the pandemic and improved cub mortality rates since the introduction of our Anti-Poaching patrols in July 2015, it’s not an unreasonable assumption, but Bandhavgarh is wild tiger territory not a sanctuary or zoo, so the tigers are free to come and go as they choose. Young adult male tigers are usually kicked out of their mother and father’s territories as they reach 3 years old, whilst some hang around on the fringes of their former home with siblings or even alone, others make the bold decision to find a new territory to call home. For some young males, this nomadic behaviour may continue for 2 or more years dependent on many factors including how many females are around, are there other stronger males to resist their challenge and is there enough prey to eat.
The Tiger Census also counts the numbers of prey animals in each transect to help determine the carrying capacity of the area. At the last Tiger Census in 2018, the number of wild tigers in Bandhavgarh was significantly higher than the predicted carrying capacity of the 2014 census. We have worked really hard since 2018 to increase the number of permanent wildlife waterholes in Bandhavgarh so that prey numbers will increase, wild tigers will need smaller territories and conflict situations can be avoided. As I write this project report, work is underway to provide year-round permanent water resources at two more locations bringing the total number of Tigers4Ever waterholes to eleven and supporting more than 48 wild tigers. We also hope to create at least one more waterhole for wild tigers, before the drought season takes hold, subject to raising another £1000 (US$1400) to fund the work. https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/water-for-bandhavgarhs-tigers/
Year of the Tiger
You have probably seen a lot in the news recently about 2022 being the Lunar Year of the Tiger. You may also recall in the last Year of the Tiger in 2010, the thirteen tiger nations pledged to double their wild tiger numbers by 2022. Back in 2010, the global wild tiger population was estimated at 3200 and by 2018 this had increased to 3900, quite some way short of the proposed 6400 which had been pledged in 2010. In 2010, India had more than 1411 wild tigers (2008 census results) so when it reported that this had increased to 2967 wild tigers in 2018 there was a sense of achievement against the 2022 target. What it is important to know is that the 2014 census reported 1785 wild tigers in India and that prior to 2010 cubs and sub-adult tigers were not counted in the census data.
The more recent census information has counted wild tigers over 12 months old in the census data, thus the results for 2022 (from the 2021 count) will be the ones to provide the best measure. One thing which we can be certain of is that in 2010 the tiger census in Bandhavgarh recorded just 37 wild tigers, and since we launched our Anti-Poaching Patrols in July 2015, wild tiger deaths due poaching and retaliatory poisoning have reduced by 98%. The combination of our efforts and improvement cub mortality saw wild tiger numbers reach an estimated 126 in Bandhavgarh in 2018, which is three times the number back in 2010, but also reflects different counting methods. So we honestly believe that our work has ensured that the number of wild tigers in Bandhavgarh has doubled (and a bit more) since the last Year of the Tiger in 2010, the challenge for us now is making sure these increases can be sustained and that future generations have suitable safe habitat and enough prey. For this reason we will be focussing our efforts on providing as many new permanent wildlife waterholes as we can throughout 2022 (https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/water-for-bandhavgarhs-tigers/) and looking to start our forest restoration initiative with a new project for tree planting too. This doesn’t mean that we won’t be prioritising keeping wild tigers safe, quite the opposite in fact as our waterhole and tree planting projects seek to reduce the number of wild tigers killed in territorial conflicts.
The Next Tiger Challenge
Your fantastic support at the end of 2021 means that our concerns of the last two years that we wouldn’t have enough funds to keep the increased patrolling going for as long as is necessary, have reduced. We are not taking the situation for granted though, keeping the increased patrolling going has tripled our monthly patrolling costs, such that we now need to raise more than £1800 (US$2520) each month to maintain the status quo. For this reason we have decided to centralise our fundraising efforts on our original Anti-Poaching Patrols project https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/saving-bandhavgarhs-wild-tigers/ and we’re asking those of you who are kind enough to donate to this project each month to consider setting up a new monthly donation to our main project at: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/saving-bandhavgarhs-wild-tigers/?show=recurring where you will be able to continue your fantastic support. As an added bonus, when you set up a new monthly donation GlobalGiving will add a 100% bonus in matched funds if you keep your regular support in place for at least four months. This is great because your donation of £20 (US$28) per month will be worth £100 (US$140) to our conservation efforts for wild tigers at the end of month 4.
We think that our current: https://www.globalgiving.org/projects/protect-bandhavgarhs-tigers-from-poachers/ is likely to be fully funded by Easter this year, which is great because we’ll be able to plan our monsoon patrolling early. On a sad note, it means that the next project update report you receive for this project may well be the last. On a positive note, it means that we will be keeping wild tigers safe from poachers’ snares and would be poisoners with the highest level of protection possible over the next two months and beyond.
Should you wish to help us achieve our goal sooner that would be wonderful of course. As you already know, our patrollers cover vast amounts of tiger territory on their daily patrols (on average around 125 km (78 miles) per day) in an area which is roughly the size of Wales (UK) or two thirds the size of the State of New Jersey (USA), so we can always make good use of any donations we receive to benefit the wild tigers (https://goto.gg/34704).
You are Making the Difference
Right now, thanks to your tremendous support we’re able to protect wild tigers in an extra 1000 km (624 miles) every month compared to our previous standard patrolling (back in June 2020). This additional patrolling allows us more time to search for snares; traps and signs of would be poisoners around forest areas where human encroachment is rife; and around the periphery of villages where crop raiding and livestock killing is rife. Increased patrolling also helps us to curb the dangerous encroachment into wild tigers’ territories, which continues to be a big problem, and allows us to provide safety advice for those trying to protect their crops and livestock from wandering elephants and tigers respectively.
With 42 new tiger cubs born since the start of the pandemic, we have many more wild tigers to keep safe now. So we still need your help. Your gift today, however large or small will always make a huge difference to the survival prospects of Bandhavgarh’s wild tigers:
Without our help, we know that more wild tigers will die; and more humans will be mauled or killed due to encroachment or human-tiger conflict. Sadly, with every human life lost comes another threat to the wild tiger’s survival in the form of retaliation; thus we must protect both if we are to ensure that wild tigers can have a wild future.
Please don’t hesitate if you can help, your donation can be the difference between life and death for a wild tiger, as it helps to increase our patrolling when and where it is most needed. Every tiger and every tiger cub counts. Thank you for making our fight against poachers, the changing climate and human-animal conflict possible. (https://goto.gg/34704).
Links:
Project Reports on GlobalGiving are posted directly to globalgiving.org by Project Leaders as they are completed, generally every 3-4 months. To protect the integrity of these documents, GlobalGiving does not alter them; therefore you may find some language or formatting issues.
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