Corbett Administration to Teach Villagers to be Tiger’s Friend

News Update – In a new initiative, Corbett administration will teach local villagers to be tiger’s friends so that the situation of human wildlife-conflict does not arise due to the increasing number of tigers in the region. Preparations are underway to provide training to the villagers by the Forest Department. From February 2023, villagers will be provided solid training on friendship with tigers. Villagers living adjacent to Corbett Park will participate in the training.

Recent incident has developed tiger terror from Garjia to Mohan Nagar on National Highway 309 which is very close to Corbett Tiger Reserve. The tiger has killed six people so far in this area. It has become very difficult for the villagers to come out side especially during the night. The forest department is also making constant appeal not to leave the house at night. And hence daily routine of the villagers have been affected. Looking at the incident so far, the forest department does not want to take any kind of risk due to negligence. Corbett is known as “Capital of Tigers” where more than 250 tigers roam.

In view of growing number of tigers, now the Corbett park administration is considering training villagers to live among tigers so that tiger- human wildlife conflict can be reduced.

Villagers to be Trained ‘Bagh Mitra’

According to the director of Corbett Tiger Reserve, villagers will be made tigers friend by giving them proper training. With this initiative, villagers will be able to help in preventing tigers from reaching the human population area and same time poachers entering the forest for deforestation. ‘’Bagh Mitra” will teach people living in villages very adjacent to forests and people moving from cities towards forests.

They will refrain people from entering Tiger Reserve area. On spotting tigers, they will inform about the behaviour of tigers along with the advice not to run away, stand at one place, not to bend down and no to go towards them.

The work of imparting training to the villagers can be started from February itself. The tiger friends will be those villagers who are already familiar with the wildlife and the forest. Forest department is taking help of such experienced villagers. They will be given training so that these people can inform the general public about the behavior of tiger and other wildlife.

Brief: Corbett Tiger Reserve

Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) has the highest tiger density among India’s 50 reserves, with a density of 14 tigers per 100 sqkms, followed by Kaziranga, Nagarhole and Orange tiger reserves. CTR has the highest tiger population- 231 in the Reserve and 266 using the Reserve- among all the 50 tiger reserves in the country.