In just nine years, India's tiger population has doubled -- and over the last four years, the country's tiger population has increased 33 percent.

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently wrote on Twitter, the results of India's tiger census should "make every Indian, every nature lover happy."

At a 2010 conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, Modi and the Indian delegation promised to double the country's tiger population by 2022. They fulfilled their commitment four years early.

The prime minister published the results of the All India Tiger Estimation Report 2018 on Monday.

"With around 3,000 tigers, India has emerged as of one of the biggest and safest habitats for them in world," Modi said at a press conference.

The prime minister thanked conservation groups and other stakeholders for their hard work, but said more work must be done to expand conservation and continue protecting large predators.

"Tigers invariably come out of their habitats, looking for water and prey. We have started taking water and prey augmentation in tiger habitats and reserves," environment minister Prakash Javadekar told Times of India. "Besides, we have also decided to allocate additional land for compensatory afforestation works in tiger corridors. This new policy will help in avoiding any human-tiger conflict situation."

Modi said it's possible to expand infrastructure while increasing protections for forests and wilderness.

"In 2014, the number of protected areas were 692, the number rose to more than 860 in 2019," he said. "Similarly, the number of community reserves were 43 in 2014 and rose to more than 100 in 2019."

Thanks in part to those conservation efforts, India is now home to nearly 3,000 tigers -- 75 percent of the world's tiger population. Now, Modi wants the country and its conservationists to set its sights on protecting other vulnerable species.

Some say they already have. It's likely that increased conservation efforts benefit more than just the tiger.

"When the tiger recovers, you're not only seeing the recovery of that species but you're also protecting large areas ... and so we're able to help conserve literally hundreds if not thousands of other species," Ginette Hemley, senior vice president of the World Wildlife Fund, told NPR.

Of course, tigers continue to face a variety of threats, mostly through interactions with humans. Tigers are still targeted for retaliatory killings after attacks on humans. But experts argue the best way to decrease the odds of dangerous human-tiger interactions is to expand the size of protected wilderness.

Bangladesh 'extremely worried' over low male tiger population
Dhaka (AFP) July 30, 2019 - A lower-than-expected population of male Bengal tigers in the world's largest mangrove forest has sparked fears about the long-term viability of the endangered species in Bangladesh, officials said Tuesday.

A poaching crackdown by authorities in the Bangladeshi part of the Sundarbans mangroves saw an increase in the big cat population from 106 to 114 four years ago, according to a census published in May.

But closer analysis of the data found the number of male tigers was lower than the typical ratio of one male for every three tigresses, with the figure now at one male for every five females, officials said.

"We are extremely worried. The standard ratio should be one male for every three female tigers," Jahidul Kabir, the government's conservator of forest wildlife, told AFP.

"In the Sharonkhola range, we found only two males against 19 female tigers," he said, adding the future of the tiger population in the Sundarbans could be at stake if the forest continues to lose male tigers.

Authorities are planning to capture male tigers from other parts of the forest and introduce them in the Sharonkhola range, which is the densest tiger habitat in the mangroves.

The census was conducted on 1,656 square kilometres (640 square miles) of forest last year and used camera traps to count the big cats.

The Sundarbans, which also straddle parts of eastern India, is home to some rare flora and fauna including Irrawaddy dolphins and Bengal tigers, both declared endangered because of poaching and loss of habitat.

Alarm bells rang in 2015 when a census found that only 106 tigers were living in the forest, less than a quarter of the 440-strong population in 2004.

Since the 2015 findings, authorities have undertaken a series of measures to boost the number of Bengal tigers in the forest -- one of the world's last remaining wild habitats for the big cats.

As part of the measures, the size of the wildlife sanctuary in the forest was more than doubled. An elite security force launched a major crackdown against pirates-turned-poachers active in the forest.

Monirul Khan, a zoology professor and a tiger expert at the state-run Jahangirnagar University, said he believed poaching was behind the low male tiger numbers.

"No doubt this is a worrying trend. And the possible reason is poaching," Khan said.

"Male tigers are aggressive and they cover bigger territory, which make them vulnerable to poaching."

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India's wild tiger population jumps to almost 3,000: census
New Delhi (AFP) July 29, 2019
India's wild tiger population has increased by more than 30 percent in the last four years, according to a new census released Monday, raising hopes for the survival of the endangered species. In what Prime Minister Narendra Modi hailed as a "historic achievement," the census found 2,967 tigers in the wild across the country, up from 2,226 four years ago. "We reaffirm our commitment towards protecting the tiger," Modi said in Delhi at the release of the latest census. "Some 15 years ago, th ... read more