Posted 30 Jun 2009

Following claims made by the Indian government that tourists are responsible for the decline in the country’s tiger population, it has been announced that areas where the creatures are known to thrive are being declared as off-limits to visitors.

Overall, 37 tiger reserves in India will be out of bounds for tourists, said the National Tiger Conservation Authority, which has highlighted that the number of tigers in India has fallen from 3,642 in 2002 to 1,411 in 2008.

Buffer zones will be set up on the edge of parks to let tourists and gap year travellers know they can go no further, reports the Times.

"If there is no protection, it may be a matter of a decade or two before we may be left with very few tigers or none at all," Kartick Satyanarayan, chairman of Wildlife SOS, commented.

Three subspecies of the creature – the Javan, Caspian and the Bali tiger – are all now extinct.

Category: Asia