By Dr. Corinne Taylor-Smith | Project Leader
After The Monsoon
The annual monsoon rains were heavy this year, especially in comparison to recent years. Heavy rains made anti-poaching patrolling challenging and more difficult this year. Although the monsoon season has ended, the threats facing Bandhavgarh's wild tigers are far from gone. Your tremendous support helped to ensure that our anti-poaching teams could successful maintained increased patrols throughout one of the most challenging periods of the year. Despite torrential rains, dangerous conditions, and increased risks from poachers exploiting poor visibility and washed-away tracks, our teams continued protecting wild tigers every day. Thank you for making this possible.
Because of generous supporters like you, patrollers had the equipment they needed to stay safe and effective, from waterproof clothing and sturdy boots to mosquito nets, flashlights, and specialist snake rescue equipment. Most importantly, they could remain in the forest when tigers needed them most.
But while the monsoon challenge has passed, a new and equally critical period has begun. Together we got the wild tigers through one of the most dangerous times of the year, but an even bigger challenge still lies ahead. Thanks to You, Tigers Survived the Monsoon. What Happens Next Matters Most.
A New Season. New Threats.
As the forests dry and access improves, human activity within and around wild tiger habitats increases significantly. Trails which were flooded become easily accessible again. People move deeper into the forest to collect resources, to graze their livestock, and to harvest forest products. Unfortunately, poachers also find it easier to enter wild tiger habitat and move undetected along established routes. At the same time, Bandhavgarh's growing tiger population continues to place increasing pressure on available habitat.
More than 226 wild tigers now live within the forest, including over 25 cubs born in the last year. As young sub-adult tigers begin dispersing in search of territories of their own, they increasingly move beyond protected core forests into buffer areas and beyond where the risks of poaching, snaring, electrocution, and conflict are much greater. This means our patrol teams can no longer focus solely on protecting tigers inside the forest. Increasingly, they must safeguard the fragmented corridors and forest edges that will determine whether these young sub-adult tigers survive to have families of their own.
Conservation Success Creates New Responsibilities
One of the greatest challenges we face today is also one of our greatest successes. When Tigers4Ever began saving wild tigers in 2010, their numbers in Bandhavgarh were dramatically lower. Only 37 wild tigers remained! Thanks to years of protection, these wild tiger numbers have now increased more than five-fold to more than 226. This is an extraordinary achievement in itself. Yet every additional wild tiger needs territory, prey, water, and protection, in an area which is constantly under human threat. Without continued investment in anti-poaching patrols, habitat restoration, water provision, vital equipment, education and wildlife corridors, the pressures created by a growing tiger population could result in increased conflict and more unnatural tiger deaths. Our success has created great opportunity for the future of wild tigers, but it has also created responsibility. (https://goto.gg/28767).
Why Winter Patrols Matter
Historically, the months following the monsoon have often seen increased poaching activity. Improved access to the forest allows poachers to travel further into tiger habitat and makes it easier for them to check snares and traps placed around forest boundaries and village peripheries. Our anti-poaching patrol team therefore needs to maintain enhanced patrols throughout the winter months, especially in known conflict hotspots and dispersal corridors. The reality is simple: Poachers only need one opportunity. Our patrollers must be vigilant every day!
Without safe habitat, wild tigers cannot thrive. Without water, prey species decline. Without corridors, conflict increases. Everything is connected. Your Support Continues to Deliver Results. Since July, your generosity has helped us to:
Most importantly, your support has helped us continue the anti-poaching patrols that remain at the heart of wild tiger conservation in Bandhavgarh. Over the years, these patrols have contributed to reducing unnatural tiger deaths by more than 98%. That represents countless tigers and cubs that are alive today because protection was there when it mattered most.
Looking Forward
In addition to maintaining and equipping our anti-poaching patrols, we continue to expand conservation efforts across the wider tiger landscape. This year, we plan to install a new wildlife waterhole within the Sarmania wildlife corridor, which is part of our habitat restoration project (https://goto.gg/70006), this will help to support dispersing sub-adult tigers and their prey as our forest restoration work progresses. We are also continuing habitat restoration efforts designed to create more safe space for the growing tiger population while reducing conflict between people and wildlife. Together, these projects help address the root causes of many of the threats which wild tigers face today.
The monsoon may be over, but the need to protect Bandhavgarh's tigers has not passed. In many ways, the coming months will be even more important. As the forests become more accessible and wild tiger populations continue to grow, our anti-poaching patrols must remain vigilant every day. Reducing patrol coverage now would risk undoing years of hard-fought conservation success. Together, we have helped create one of India's greatest conservation success stories. Now, with your help, we must ensure that success continues. More than 226 tigers and cubs are depending on the protection your generosity makes possible. Thank you for standing with us, supporting our patrollers, and helping us to secure a future where wild tigers can not only survive, but thrive. Please help us continue this vital work: https://goto.gg/28767. Every patrol matters. Every tiger matters. Every donation matters.
Why We Cannot Afford to Slow Down
Over 25 tiger cubs have been born in Bandhavgarh the last year. These cubs represent the future of one of the world's most important wild tiger populations. Yet they face many dangers. As they grow, they will encounter territorial disputes, habitat pressures, and increasing interaction with people living around the forest boundaries. The better protected they are during these vulnerable years, the greater their chance of surviving to adulthood. Our anti-poaching patrollers have already seen their workload increase three-fold over the last five years. Despite that challenge, they continue their work with exceptional commitment and bravery. But they cannot do it alone.
You Make a Difference
Your support currently helps our anti-poaching patrols to cover an additional 1800 kilometres (1135 miles) of wild tiger habitat every month. Every kilometre covered means more opportunities to:
Quite simply, your support saves lives. A gift today can help:
With Thanksgiving, the holiday season, Giving Tuesday and Christmas for those who celebrate it just around the corner, we hope to make this winter special for the wild tigers and those who protect them by ensuring that our work can continue long into 2027 and beyond. Our friends at Typical Tigers NFT have released an updated version of their Typical Tigers colouring book just in time for the holiday season. Profits from the book sales will help our habitat restoration project by ensuring that we can plant more trees for wild tigers and their prey. The new book is available now on Amazon on both sides of the Atlantic: (https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B0HPTBP3NT). On Giving Tuesday this year, our friends at GlobalGiving are adding bonus funds to unique online donations up to $2500 (£1860) (donations above $2500 will receive bonus matched funds on the first $2500) so it is a great time to donate more if you can. (https://goto.gg/28767). Thank you.
Without our help, we know that wild tigers will die; and more humans 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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By Dr. Corinne Taylor-Smith | Project Leader
By Dr. Corinne Taylor-Smith | Project Leader
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