Radio collars can’t kill tigers: BNHS

The Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) stands firmly behind the method of radio-collaring as an efficient tool in preservation of big cats.

This is in light of the recent “wildlife intelligence report” submitted to the government, that blamed radio-collaring as the cause of death of tigers in Panna National Park in Madhya Pradesh, alleging that radio collars hamper natural movements of tigers, cause neck infections leading to death and are used by poachers to locate tigers.

After doing investigation on this issue through informed sources and Society members, BNHS Director and Member of National Board for Wildlife, Dr Asad Rahmani said, “BNHS is horrified to know about the so-called intelligence report which indirectly blames the researchers. The silence of Madhya Pradesh forest department on the issue is also shocking.”

Moreover, in Panna, scientists have been using radio-collaring and telemetry to study the ecology and ranging behaviour of tigers, with the permission of the government. The last tiger collared in Panna was in 2002, the battery of which would have run out in two years.

Surely this was much earlier than 2007, the year in which Panna became “tiger-less” according to authorities. “The claim that poachers use radio-collaring to track tigers is baseless since the equipment has to be imported after going through customs checks and the frequencies of every radio collar can be tracked only by the investigators,” Dr Rahmani said.

There is no way the radio-collaring of seven tigers in Panna could have resulted in the disappearance of 30-35 tigers.