Human & Tiger Conflict

India has 48 tiger reserves, and is home to an estimated 2300 of the 4000 last surviving wild tigers on this planet. The livelihood of the people residing in the thousands of villages around these sanctuaries is solely dependent on agriculture, livestock grazing, honey collecting and fishing. As the human population has increased, settlement, cultivation, and developmental activities have dramatically encroached on the natural habitat. A low prey base and a quickly-shrinking forest creates an ecological imbalance, where tigers very often share space with humans. Tigers pose a serious threat to humans, and prey on the livestock that many local communities depend on. In reciprocation, some local people poison their livestock to kill the tiger. In order to mitigate the human-tiger conflict, the government suggested human relocation as a solution. This has many practical hurdles however, as certain groups of people do not want to move from their place of origin and fight continually with the government.