Vanishing Stripes: Save the Bengal Tiger

Hello and greetings from Wildlife Trust of India!

We hope you are doing great.

With this email, we are sharing the updates for our project titled 'Vanishing Stripes: Save the Bengal Tiger”. We are so honoured and grateful for your support as you chose to donate for the project among so many wonderful causes out there. This means a lot to us. Thank you so much for believing in our work.

Today’s updates are from the Kawal Tiger Reserve in Telangana.

Kawal Tiger Reserve, an important tiger habitat in India, is plagued by timber smuggling. This has resulted in steady deterioration of the tiger habitat. The frontline staff deployed at the Tiger Reserve to prevent any tiger poaching and timber smuggling activities were operating amidst a dearth of basic amenities to conduct these essential activities. To supplement them, we provided the teams with necessary field kits comprising – solar home kits, torchlights, first aid boxes, blankets and jackets.

As the staff patrols nearly 8-10 kilometres of the reserve every day, the equipment and field gear added to their productivity and helped them with efficient patrolling. In the reporting period, the team managed to apprehend 3 timber mafia groups.

The above could be made possible through your support. Thank you so much for your donation.

Warm regards,

Team WTI

Greetings from Wildlife Trust of India!

Thank you so much for making a donation to our project ‘Vanishing Stripes: Save the Bengal Tiger’. Your support is highly valued and helps us create a better world for tigers in India. Here’s an update on activities conducted with your support.

Established in 1965, Kawal Tiger Reserve is one of the oldest sanctuaries in northern Telangana. It extends from the Sahyadri hill ranges to the Tadoba forest spreading over an area of 893 sq km. These dense forests of teak trees with a mixture of bamboo form an important corridor for tigers from Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR) in Maharashtra moving south of the peninsular. Early this year studies reported the corridor to be hampered with several threats posed due to human interference, leading to very few tigers moving to safety from TATR. The Forest Department had proposed to declare Kawal TR and adjoining tiger corridors as a satellite core in 2020.

Frontline staff of Kawal TR have been actively involved in patrolling the region and recording movement of tigers (direct/indirect evidences) on a daily basis. In the past two months, the department had apprehended nine timber smuggling and sand mining cases in the landscape where two tigers were actively migrating. However, there was a lack of access to basic amenities - drinking water, electricity, medical aid, communication facilities, etc for the watchers stationed at the protection camps. In order to ensure best vigilance measures for the safety of tigers moving in the landscape, WTI believed the need to provide the guardians of the wild, essentials for smooth patrolling work. Acting on the Range Officer's request solar home kits for the remotely located patrolling camps, high power LED torchlights along with blankets and jackets were provided to 25 frontline staff of patrolling camps located in the prime tiger corridor between Tipeshwar WLS and Kawal TR.

We are hopeful this aid shall help in better vigilance and safe passage for our big cats across the corridor.

We could do this because of the support provided by you, for which we are highly grateful. We will be back with more updates soon. Till then, take care!

Warm regards,

Team WTI

Greetings from Wildlife Trust of India!

Hope you are doing great.

We are back with the updates on our project ‘Vanishing Stripes – Save the Bengal Tiger’, which you so generously chose to donate for.

Thank you so much for your kind donation and for believing in our work. It is through your support that we are able to work towards our vision of a secure natural heritage of India.

Today’s updates are from the Kawal Tiger Reserve, which is the oldest sanctuary in the northern region of Telangana state. It has dense teak forests relatively free of human habitation, a rarity in today’s world. The species found here include tigers, leopards, gaurs, cheetal, sambar, nilgai, barking deer, sloth bears and many more.

Last year, nine cases of timber smuggling and sand mining were apprehended in the Dimmadurthy range of the reserve. This was made possible through the tireless efforts of the protection staff deployed at the reserve.

What they do is not easy – being on a constant vigil to tackle smugglers to protect this pristine tiger habitat. A lack of basic facilities, such as – clean drinking water, electricity, medical aid, and communication facilities etc. – makes it even more difficult for the protection staff to operate. To boost their moral and supplement basic amenities, the range officer requested assistance to strengthen the protection camps at 3 beats – ‘Kappanpally’, ‘Singapur’ and ‘Rajura’. The beats are located within the Tiger Corridor between Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary and Kawal Tiger Reserve.

Through your support, we sanctioned a Rapid Action Project to provide two solar home kits, 25 LED torchlights, three first aid kits, 25 blankets and 25 jackets to the staff. We are hopeful that the provision of some of these basic facilities shall motivate the protection staff and help them focus on the critical task of monitoring the Tiger Reserve and keeping it free from the smuggling menace.

That’s all for today. We will soon be back with more updates on the work we do to protect tiger population in India. Till then, take care!

Warm regards,

Team WTI

Greetings from Wildlife Trust of India,

Hope you are doing great!

At the outset, we would like to express our gratitude to you for supporting the project ‘Vanishing Stripes – Save the Bengal Tiger’. The project aims to protect India’s tiger population through community awareness programmes on mitigating human-tiger conflict and by conducting anti-snare walks across India’s Protected Areas inhabiting tiger populations. Your generous contribution will significantly help us realize the project’s aim. We are also highly thankful to you for believing in us, our work and for choosing to donate for this cause.

As mandated by the project, anti-snare walks were conducted across Protected Areas dominated by tiger population in Karnataka. Snares are the simplest yet one of the cruellest means of hunting. They indiscriminately trap and kill a wide range of wildlife. The unsuspecting animals walk into these vicious traps and are subjected to terrible injuries and a slow, painful demise. ‘Anti-snare walks’ is a simple yet effective solution to deal with the problem of snares. These walks involve joint patrolling on foot with the forest department authorities to find and remove snares made with different materials such as wires, ropes, cables, metal etc. We believe that every snare removed is an animal saved.

The traps removed were set up by farmers to catch wild boars that raid crops. Between June and October, the project team walked over 500 km and removed all the snares found.

This was made possible through your generous support and we would like to thank you once again for the same. That’s all for today. We’ll soon follow up with more updates from the project. Till then, take care!

With regards,

Team WTI  

Dear donor,

Hope you have been keeping well.

With this email, we are sharing with you the updates for our project titled “Vanishing stripes: save the Bengal tiger”. Thank you so much for your generous donation to the project.

In March this year, a wildfire threatened to cause massive damage to Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, which is one of the largest biospheres in India. The Tiger Reserve supports one of the largest known population of the Big Cat in India, with around 7-8 tigers per sqkm. Looking at the scale and intensity of the wildfire, the environmentalists and local activists raised an alarm over the possible damage to the tiger population as well as other species of flora and fauna within the protected area.

The forest officials speculated that the fire could have been initiated due to the locals burning ‘sal’ trees on the ground for easy collection of ‘Mahua’ and other non-timber forest produce. The bamboo clumps and the heat wave prevailing within the region at that time, further took the fire to devastating proportions.

Whatever the reason, it got the entire field-level staff to douse the fire. To support the forest staff in their fire-dousing efforts, we provided them with leaf blowers and water canisters. With the right equipment, we were hopeful it would get easier for the forest officials to mitigate this massive fire hazard in this important tiger habitat.

We will be sharing more such updates with you for your generous donations.

Till then, take care.

Regards,

Team WTI