Tiger Comeback Brewing India, Census Data Show

A Royal Bengal tiger cools off in the water at a zoo in Hyderabad, India, Monday, March 28, 2011. India's latest tiger census shows an increase in the numbers of the endangered big cat.

NEW DELHI - India Census Tiger later shows an increase in the number of big cat endangered, but the threats to their territory roaming could reverse these gains, officials said Monday.

The census counted at least 1,706 tigers in the forests around the country, about 300 more than four years, a government official said Monday.

Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh called up good news, but warned against complacency in the effort to save the iconic animals from extinction.

"The increase is the result of hard work, but the decline of tiger corridors are alarming," said Ramesh.

Wildlife experts who conducted the census says that brokers tigre, which are the routes used by the big cats to move from one reserve to another, had shrunk considerably in the high-energy projects, mines and roads cut habitat.

"To maintain these corridors should be taken as a priority," said Rajesh Gopal, Director of the National Conservation Authority Tigre.

But India continues its economic program, the threat of increasing the tiger as the government tries to reconcile the demands of development and conservation of wildlife, said Ramesh.

Contrary to previous estimates of individual Pugmark tiger when tigers were counted, this time the Conservatives have used hidden cameras and DNA tests to count the cats in 17 states in India, where tigers live in the wild.

"The count is more scientific this time, and therefore more accurate," said Gopal.

Census, 70 tigers in the eastern Indian Sunderbans Tiger Reserve, which has not been calculated on the last census in 2007. Sunderbans of the population does not count the number of the latest increase reflects approximately 16 percent.

The 2007 census showed 1,411 tigers, a sharp decline in the population of around 3600, five years earlier.

A century ago, 100,000 tigers roamed the forests of India.

Shrinking habitat of wild cats have brought in conflict with the farmers who live near tiger reserves, and poachers who kill the skins and body parts valued in traditional Chinese medicine.

The release of the latest tiger census results coincided with the start of a three-day international conference to review progress on the 2010 Summit in St. Petersburg in 13 countries, home to wild tigers.

In the New Delhi meeting, countries will present strategies for implementing the World Recovery Program adopted in St. Petersburg Tigre, which plans to double the population of tigers in 2022, curbing poaching and illegal trade in tiger skins and other parts the body.