India’s tiger success brings a new challenge: Living alongside the big cats

A tiger attack near Karnataka's Bandipur reserve left a 45-year-old cotton farmer blinded and disfigured; weeks later, another farmer nearby was killed in a separate encounter. Forest officials say such incidents are rising because India's tiger population, now estimated at 3,682, has outgrown its protected areas, with roughly a third of tigers living outside reserve boundaries.

The Karnataka Forest Department has captured 30 tigers since September 2025, releasing all but two back into the wild after verifying identities through camera-trap photos of their stripes. Experts describe the captures as an imperfect fix: relocated tigers sometimes return to old territory, and removing one often just opens space for another disperser, occasionally triggering fights or cub killings among rivals.

Officials, including a scientist who has studied the issue for years, say tigers rarely seek out humans and that most attacks happen during sudden encounters or come from old, injured animals unable to hunt normal prey. About 100 tigers a year are sent to zoos nationwide when they're judged unfit to return to the wild.

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