Tiger Conservation at Kanha encompasses a wide range of management practices all-round the year to confirm the possible population of tigers. Some of the conservation practices on the other side aim at safeguarding wildlife and its habitat from all forms of misdeeds, including the destruction of habitat and poaching, while the others are stabilizing the habitat from destruction and improving the varied habitat types and help in sustaining thousands of ungulates. Eco-development practices are carried out in the villages in the buffer zone for gaining public confidence and wildlife conservation support. Another important conservation practice is wildlife health management.
Some important conservation practices are directly related to the betterment of the wilderness more specifically in the core zone which are as under:
1. Protection- Securing the wildlife and its habitat in the tiger reserve has been accorded the top priority and several issues have been identified by Kanha management related to protection like poaching, illicit grazing, illegal entry, illicit felling, illicit extraction of minor forest produce wildlife produce and encroachment, etc. Under different strategies, these issues are being addressed.
2. Habitat Improvement- It is another very important conservation practice, especially in the core. This includes the use of prescribed fire to safeguard the habitat in the summer, on the severely grazed grasslands for 1 to 2 seasons relief enclosure is raised, restocking of the degraded grasslands by arranging the select sites and planting grass slips and bounding them for 1 to 2 seasons, and annual weed, lantana, and brushwood eradication to maintain the health of the grasslands.
3. Wildlife and Habitat Monitoring- Including the annual wildlife estimation exercise, patrolling, seasonal phase 4 monitoring, and ecological monitoring via M-STrIPES throughout the year.
4. Wildlife Health Management- Another major concern of Kanha management is the surveillance and monitoring of wildlife diseases under extensive wildlife health management. The Reserve has a self-effacing veterinary setup, with a wildlife veterinarian also coached in wildlife management. Mainly, all wildlife health management practices aim for the prevention of the occurrence of serious diseases more specifically epidemics and ensure that proper vaccination is being done of cattle in the surrounding villages, conducting postmortems of wild animals, and drawing conclusions about the cause of death and treatment and management of the ill, problematic and distressed wild animals.
5. Water Development- One of the most important conservation methods is water development which includes the distribution and the quantity of water not only in the dry regions but also where it is largely found. A Good number of water bodies are located here like the stop-dams, anicuts, earthen tanks, rivers, and, perennial streams which need to be deepened, reshaped, and desilted to help them conserve water for a longer period before the rains. In some areas of the core zone in the pinch period, water tankers are also used to fill saucers.
6. Tiger Training and Rearing- The Kanha Core Zone is a well-monitored high tiger density area thereby affecting some individuals with their dynamics. For example, cubs are often orphaned due to the resident male tiger killing the mother tigress in fierce infighting. Hence, the Kanha management then thinks that instead of sending those cubs to the zoo they are given chance by rearing and training them for rewilding in the low-density area. The Idea then paved the way for keeping those orphaned cubs in a quarantine house for some time and then later shifting them to the in-situ enclosure with the provision of tranquility, security, and opaqueness along with the mechanism to release the prey animals for the predators.
Thus, Tiger is one of the most prominent predators on which the whole ecosystem depends thereby ensuring the safety of tigers along with ensuring the balance of the ecosystem. Tiger is an ‘umbrella species’ whose conservation thereby leads to the conservation of various other species such as pollinators, ungulates, and other small animals and are species that are selected for conservation-related decisions.
