Socioeconomic and political stability bolstered wild tiger recovery in India

India, the world’s most populated country, has been successfully working to recover one of the largest, and most iconic, carnivores, the tiger, for decades. Protection, prey, peace, and prosperity have been key factors in the tiger recovery within this densely populated country, according to a new study. According to its authors, success in India offers a rare opportunity to explore the socio-ecological factors influencing tiger recovery more broadly. Earth’s large carnivores, crucial for maintaining ecosystem health, are among the most threatened species, impacted by habitat loss, prey depletion, human conflict, and illegal exploitation. These apex predators – vital for maintaining trophic cascades and ecosystem health – face diminishing populations, particularly in developing regions, where challenges like habitat fragmentation and high poverty compound conservation and recovery efforts. Tigers, once widespread across Asia, had been eliminated from over 90% of their historic range, leaving only about 3,600 wild individuals by the early 21st century. In response, tiger-range countries launched the Global Tiger Recovery Program in 2010 with the goal of doubling tiger populations by 2022. Despite hosting some of the densest human populations on Earth, India achieved this target and is now home to roughly 75% of the world’s wild tigers.

Drawing on 20 years of extensive national-scale tiger monitoring data, Yadvendradev Jhala and colleagues analyzed 381,000 square kilometers (km²) of tiger habitats using advanced occupancy models and high-resolution spatial datasets. The findings show that tigers have increased their range by nearly 3,000 km² annually over the past 2 decades, with a large portion of their current territory (45%) shared with ~60 million people in India. Protected areas, abundant with prey species, played a vital role in providing refuge, allowing tigers to repopulate surrounding multi-use landscapes. However, regions affected by high poverty, armed conflict, and habitat loss saw continued absence of tigers and localized extinctions, underscoring the importance of socioeconomic and political factors in ensuring successful recovery. “The success of tiger recovery in India offers important lessons for tiger-range countries as well as other regions for conserving large carnivores while benefitting biodiversity and communities simultaneously,” write Jhala et al. “It rekindles hope for a biodiverse Anthropocene.”