Nagpur: In the last three years due to poaching, natural and unnatural causes, India has lost 329 tigers, the Centre said.
Apart from this, 307 elephants have died in the last three years due to poaching, electrocution, poisoning and train accidents, it further added. The data was presented by the Union Minister of State for Environment Ashwini Kumar Choubey in Lok Sabha on Monday.
He informed that 96 tigers died in 2019, 106 in 2020, and 127 in 2021. “68 tiger deaths were attributed to natural causes, five to unnatural causes, 29 to poaching, and 30 to seizure. A total of 197 tiger deaths are under scrutiny,” he added.
As per the data presented by the minister, 125 people have been killed in tiger attacks in the past three years, 61 in Maharashtra and 25 in Uttar Pradesh.
In a shocking revelation, 222 elephants have died due to electrocution in the last three years, with maximum deaths in Odisha—41, followed by Tamil Nadu—34 and Assam—33. Besides this, 45 elephants have died due to train accidents. Odisha and West Bengal logged 12 and 11 such fatalities respectively.
The data presented revealed that 29 elephants died due to poaching, including 12 in Meghalaya and seven in Odisha, while 11 elephants died due to poisoning, including nine in Assam during the period.
