India boasts 70 percent of world's tigers: government survey

India boasts about 70 percent of the world's tiger population with its tigers' headcount rose to 2,967 in 2021 from 2,226 in 2014, according to a government survey.

Last week one more tiger habitat was added in India's list of over 50 tiger reserves nationwide. The latest is the Guru Ghasidas National Park located in the northern area of the central state of Chhattisgarh, which, along with the adjacent Tamor Pingla Wildlife Sanctuary, has been declared as a tiger reserve.

The newest tiger habitat is the fourth of its kind in Chhattisgarh, after the Udanti Sitanadi, Achanakmar, and Indravati tiger reserves.

India has established many wildlife sanctuaries and national parks, with a track-record of conservation and dedicated care of over 100,000 wildlife species.

India has made efforts over the years to conserve biological diversity, which bore fruits in terms of increasing the headcount of several species that were endangered and once on the verge of extinction.

For example, the "Save the Tiger" campaign began in 2010 after serious concerns were raised over the dwindling numbers of the big cats in this South Asian country. The campaign's main aim was to build public awareness about saving the wild beast.

Similar campaigns have been conducted in India to keep up wildlife conservation, particularly for those species declared as being endangered or faced with extinction over the past decades.

In a bid to save the one-horned rhino, a rare species found in India, nearly 2,500 rhino horns were burnt and destroyed in the eastern state of Assam recently to mark the World Rhino Day.

Official data showed that as of March 2020, India had a total of 688 animal species and 428 plants included in the International Union for Conservation of Nature's critically endangered, endangered and vulnerable categories, as compared to 646 species in 2014, and 413 in 2009.