🤯 Did You Know (click to read)
The Terai Arc Landscape supports one of the largest connected tiger populations in the world.
The Terai Arc Landscape spans India and Nepal as a transboundary tiger stronghold. Collaborative efforts have increased overall tiger numbers in recent years. Yet juvenile mortality across this mosaic of forests and farms remains significant. As cubs mature, they traverse agricultural fields and settlements. Human-tiger conflict incidents disproportionately involve younger dispersers. Official bilateral reports often emphasize total population growth. However, age-specific survival rates receive less public attention. Fragmented land use patterns create pockets of high risk between protected cores. The landscape looks continuous on maps but fragmented on the ground.
💥 Impact (click to read)
Transboundary conservation requires harmonized monitoring standards. Differences in reporting metrics can obscure cub survival trends. If one region tracks adult abundance while another tracks all age classes, comparisons become misleading. Young tigers are essential for sustaining genetic flow across borders. Mortality spikes in buffer zones undermine corridor effectiveness. Infrastructure expansion in frontier districts compounds the challenge. Effective planning must integrate youth survival into cross-border policy.
Community-based conflict mitigation programs have reduced retaliatory killings in parts of the Terai. Expanding such programs can improve juvenile survival during dispersal. Transparent data sharing between nations strengthens adaptive management. Public support grows when success metrics include honest discussion of vulnerabilities. Saving tiger cubs in a shared landscape demands shared accountability. In international conservation, borders mean nothing to a wandering subadult.
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