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Human activities affect wildlife in several ways, ungulates tend to avoid areas of high human use and alter their behavior to avoid human activity. We used remote camera traps to quantify the relative abundance and activity of wild ungulates in high and low human use areas within Nagarjunasagar Srisailam Tiger Reserve (NSTR). Major human activity in NSTR included collection of forest produce and fuel wood, and livestock grazing. Poaching for bush-meat and the use of hunting dogs was also prevalent, but could not be quantified. The relative abundance of wild ungulates was high in low human-use areas except for chital and wild pigs, which require flat terrain and water found in prime areas for settlements. Diurnal ungulates like Chital and Nilgai substantially altered their activity in response to human activity, as did nocturnal species like Sambar and Mouse Deer. The demographic response of ungulates in NSTR has been poor compared to other tiger reserves that have been made free of human use. Our research highlights the importance of having human-free protected areas so as to achieve the desired conservation objectives of harbouring viable populations of large carnivores that require high prey abundance.

The global decline of large carnivore populations warrants scientific insights into intraguild relationships. Patterns of co-occurrence among sympatric predators are governed by their density, distribution, diet, activity overlaps, and behavioural strategies. Tigers are sympatric with leopards across their distribution range, overlap substantially in their diet, and are both nocturnal. The subdominant leopard is believed to coexist with tigers via several mechanisms like spatial segregation, temporal avoidance, and differential prey selection. Investigation of spatio-temporal patterns of co-occurrence of tigers and leopards can provide insights on mechanisms that permit coexistence. We used camera trap-based photo captures of tigers and leopards in prey-rich (58.15±10.61 ungulates per km2) Pench Tiger Reserve to determine their spatio-temporal patterns of co-occurrence. Spatially explicit density estimates of tigers were approximately 5 per 100 km2 and leopards were approximately 4.5 per 100 km2 and remained stable over the years. This implies that both these co-predators are likely to attain carrying capacity within the study area. Areas with high tiger density had lower leopard density. Quantile regression analysis between tiger and leopard density at 2×2 km grid showed that leopard density had a parabolic relationship with tiger density, initially increasing with tigers (β=0.393; p=0.001), stable at medium tiger density (β=0.13 and p=0.15), and declining at high tiger densities (β=-0.37 and p). Both tigers and leopards were crepuscular in nature with no temporal segregation (Δ=89 %). Time lag of consecutive leopard photograph after a tiger capture ranged between 0.002 to 36.29 d. Leopard use of trails was not related to use by tigers. Our results suggest that leopards adjust their usage of space at fine scales to avoid confrontations with tigers. We also observed high temporal overlap and no spatio-temporal segregation between tigers and leopards, despite the two predators being nocturnal and having similar prey choices. The availability of ample prey within the study area is likely to be the driving factor of the co-occurrence of tigers and leopards within this dry deciduous habitat of central India.

Department of Science and Technology (DST). Grant Number: /SPLICE/CCP/NMSHE/TF-2/WII/2014[G] Human modification and habitat fragmentation significantly impact large carnivores requiring large, connected habitats to persist in a landscape. Understanding species responses to such change and the protection of critical areas and connectivity they provide is essential when planning effective conservation strategies. Our study examines the spatial distribution of the snow leopard (Panthera uncia) across a gradient of protection status, anthropogenic pressures and habitat types in the Gangotri landscape (~4600 km2), Western Himalaya. Using spatial capture-recapture modeling, we analyzed a 4-year camera trapping dataset (2015-2019) to assess the relationship between snow leopard movement and topography and identified the conducible areas for facilitating movement across the landscape. Snow leopard density was positively associated with elevation and slope, and was higher in protected areas (summer: 1.42 SE 0.02/100km2; winter 2.15 SE 0.03 vs. summer: 0.4 SE 0.01; winter: 0.6 SE 0.01 for unprotected areas). Precipitous terrain and several prominent mountain peaks were found to be resistant to snow leopard movement. Even with a range of human activities inside protected areas, the higher density suggests a positive impact of protection. Density-weighted connectivity showed that conducible areas are available between the Gangotri landscape and the adjacent protected areas. However, compared to protected area, these areas are relatively less used and require attention for management. We recommend regulating human activities and co-managing pastures with local communities to revive prey base outside protected areas, especially in corridors, to ensure such areas are functionally conducive. Our study provides a framework to collectively quantitate the spatial pattern of abundance, distribution and connectivity. Our approach has broad applicability for policymakers to develop strategic plans for balancing the conservation of species, and other land uses in a multiuse landscape. Postprint

In a world where biodiversity is on the decline, examples of conservation success especially of large carnivores are of interest to policy makers and conservation practitioners. Herein, we elucidate the conservation actions that have been responsible for the recovery of tigers and their ecosystems in India; a feat many range countries are struggling to achieve. Demand‐driven poaching resulted in extinctions at two prestigious Tiger Reserves. India's Prime Minister constituted a Tiger Task Force that led to the formation of the National Tiger Conservation Authority, the Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, scientific monitoring of tiger populations and incentivized voluntary relocation of human settlements from tiger reserves. Tiger Conservation Plans, cognizant of constraints imposed by small reserves embedded in human land uses, aimed to create source populations within tiger reserves with corridor links between sources and to sink habitats. Metapopulation management enhanced occupancy and long‐term viability of tiger populations. Tiger Protection Force and technology like MSTrIPES, E‐eye and drones effectively reduced poaching. Community support was attempted through profit sharing, mitigating human–tiger conflict with a fast, fair and transparent compensation process and removal of problem tigers. Reintroduction and reinforcement of tigers and prey assisted natural recovery. Political will ensured resources. Tigers were monitored using Spatially Explicit Capture–Recapture with camera traps and ecological covariates. In 2018–2019 from 381,000 km2 of tiger habitat, 89,000 km2 was occupied. Currently, 50 tiger reserves cover 72,750 km2 and harbour 65% of India's ~3,000 tigers. Tiger reserves are managed with an annual investment of ~1,000 USD/km2 with one staff per 6.5 km2. Tiger reserves were regularly evaluated for Management Effectiveness. Tiger reserves were valued to have benefit flows between 76,900 and 292,300 US$ km−2year−1. In the Anthropocene it is unlikely that tigers will survive without targeted conservation investments. Political commitment and resources can become available for conservation when people and tigers benefit simultaneously. Conscious balance by governments between development for rapid economic prosperity and long‐term ecological security will ensure that wild tigers and their intact ecosystems will survive for future generations. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

We report the presence and status of the Irrawaddy Dolphin Orcaella brevirostris in the Hooghly River of West Bengal, India. These observations were made while conducting our field work on the Ganges River Dolphin, which involved vessel-based surveys as well as intensive monitoring from an anchored boat.

This work is part of a project initiated under the National Mission for Sustaining the Himalayan Ecosystem (NMSHE) Programme funded by the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India (grant no.: DST/SPLICE/CCP/NMSHE/TF-2/WII/2014[G]). The Miriam Rothschild Travel Bursary Programme provided funding for a 4-week internship for R. Pal with S.T. Buckland at St Andrews University, UK. Throughout the Himalaya, mountain ungulates are threatened by hunting for meat and body parts, habitat loss, and competition with livestock. Accurate population estimates are important for conservation management but most of the available methods to estimate ungulate densities are difficult to implement in mountainous terrain. Here, we tested the efficacy of the recent extension of the point transect method, using camera traps for estimating density of two mountain ungulates: the group-living Himalayan blue sheep or bharal Pseudois nayaur and the solitary Himalayan musk deer Moschus leucogaster. We deployed camera traps in 2017-2018 for the bharal (summer: 21 locations; winter: 25) in the trans-Himalayan region (3,000-5,000 m) and in 2018-2019 for the musk deer (summer: 30 locations; winter: 28) in subalpine habitats (2,500-3,500 m) in the Upper Bhagirathi basin, Uttarakhand, India. Using distance sampling with camera traps, we estimated the bharal population to be 0.51 ± SE 0.1 individuals/km2 (CV = 0.31) in summer and 0.64 ± SE 0.2 individuals/km2 (CV = 0.37) in winter. For musk deer, the estimated density was 0.4 ± SE 0.1 individuals/km2 (CV = 0.34) in summer and 0.1 ± SE 0.05 individuals/km2 (CV = 0.48) in winter. The high variability in these estimates is probably a result of the topography of the landscape and the biology of the species. We discuss the potential application of distance sampling with camera traps to estimate the density of mountain ungulates in remote and rugged terrain, and the limitations of this method. Publisher PDF

Prioritizing conservation of source populations within landscapes is proposed as a strategy for recovering tigers globally. We studied population dynamics of tigers in Corbett National Park (CNP) in Indian Terai, which harbours the largest and highest density tiger population in any protected area of the world. Through population viability models, we demonstrate the importance of CNP in tiger recovery within western Terai. We camera trapped 521 km² of CNP using open population capture–mark–recapture framework between 2010 and 2015 to estimate annual abundance, spatially explicit density, survival, recruitment, temporary movements, sex ratio and proportion of females breeding. We model metapopulation persistence with and without Corbett as a source within western Terai landscape at different levels of poaching and habitat connectivity. In 6 years, we recorded 6,202 photo‐captures of 307 individual tigers. Annual tiger abundance and density were stable at 120 (SE 19) and 14 (SE 3) per 100 km² respectively. Detection probability of tigers was 0.18 (SE 0.03) and detection‐corrected male:female sex ratio was female biased (0.80 SE 0.13). Apparent annual survival probability was 0.79 (SE 0.05) for females and 0.60 (SE 0.04) for males. Survival of tigers in CNP (0.68 SE 0.12) was lower than that reported for other populations. CNP tigers showed high reproduction with 54.8 (SE 5.1)% females breeding and with addition of 35 (SE 8)% as new recruits to the population each year. Small tiger populations in western Terai with moderate poaching could only persist through dispersal from CNP. Synthesis and applications. Corbett tiger population was characterized by a stable high density, high reproductive rate and low survival, resulting in high turnover rates (32%–48%) between successive years. Such source populations could sustain low‐level poaching and with habitat connectivity, recover tiger populations across the landscape. This study establishes potential thresholds that can likely be achieved by tiger populations under optimal natural conditions and highlights the importance of prioritizing conservation of source populations within tiger landscapes. This information can be used to plan and implement realistic tiger recovery programmes globally.

As pressure from a growing human population increases around the world, greater levels of conflict between people and wildlife over shrinking available land may be inevitable. The conversion of Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary to Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) in India is a conservation initiative under “Project Tiger” scheme to facilitate greater habitat connectivity across the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve. We interviewed local people in the MTR landscape to determine their interest and attitude towards resettlement and tiger conservation following MTR’s new status designation. We found that non-tribal Mountain Chetties generally had negative attitude towards tiger conservation, Kurumbas were positive toward the idea, and Kattunaickers, and Irula people and other minor ethnic groups were found neutral. We found that literate respondents were less likely to collect firewood and more likely to exhibit positive attitude towards tiger conservation and the establishment of MTR. Households with higher milk production, and people with generally negative attitude towards wildlife conservation, were against the declaration of MTR. People employed in private sectors and those having negative perception towards wildlife conservation were more likely to show negative attitude towards declaration of MTR. Locals desiring resettlement post MTR declaration were literate, and interested in availing better livelihood resources. However, they usually suffered relatively high livestock loss to large carnivores, and high crop damage caused by elephant (Elephas maximus). Most respondents (74.3%) were interested in resettlement provided that basic amenities were available to them. We recommend that conservation authorities facilitate “choice-based resettlement” options, which account for local people’s consent before making decisions on “resettlement”. This approach will avoid possible conflicts between forest managers and local people.

India, a megadiverse tropical country is grappling with the issue of biological invasions. As a signatory to the Convention on Biological Diversity, India is committed for managing its major biological invasions by 2020. Lack of prioritization of invasive species for control and management is the biggest hurdle for achieving this commitment. We reviewed 21 High Concern Invasive Species (HiCIS) across four major ecosystems (terrestrial mainland, island, freshwater, and marine) in India, utilizing the prioritization framework for understanding the existing knowledge and gaps. We reviewed the existing peer-reviewed and grey literature on HiCIS for information on their ecology, impacts, and management. Prioritization framework provided “priority scores” and “confidence scores” to each HiCIS, where priority score comprised of the species’ ecology and its management lacunae. Confidence score represented the reliability of the priority score. We found that invasions on terrestrial mainland ecosystem in India are the most studied invasions followed by freshwater, island, and marine ecosystem. Priority score of a given HiCIS was positively correlated with its impacts on biodiversity (R = 0.63), physical environment (R = 0.70), and ecosystem services (R = 0.60). This correlation supports scientific focus on deleterious species. The study also indicates policies and guidelines in place for management of invasions as a part of a larger scheme or Legal Act, resulting in their obscurity to the managers, and hindering management of HiCIS. This quantitative synthesis provides a model framework for countries struggling with channelizing management efforts to an overwhelmingly large number of invasive species.

Conservation of large carnivores is dependent on a viable population of their principal prey species. Line transect based density estimation has been established as a robust method for monitoring prey population trend. Chital (Axis axis) and sambar (Rusa unicolor) are the major ungulates in Pench tiger reserve, Madhya Pradesh that are principal tiger and leopard prey. Estimated densities using line transect surveys were highest for chital in the study area with a range of 44–52 individuals per sq. km. from 2013–16. Sambar density remained stable ranging from 5–8 individuals per sq. km. over the three years (2013–16). Camera trap-based encounter rate was used to calculate the Relative Abundance Index of the principal prey species of tigers and leopards in the study area. Spatial distribution pattern using the Relative Abundance Index showed that 47.16% chital captures were congregated near the submergence area whereas 38.53% sambar captures were near rugged areas. Abundant resources and lack of competition from domestic livestock in the core zone contribute to such high estimates of prey population in the study area.

The present study was conducted in Little Rann of Kutch (LRK) landscape in the Gujarat state of western India. It is a vast saline mud-plain holding the last remaining source population of Indian wild ass (Equus hemionus khur) or Khur after its population from other parts of the world got locally extinct. Khur occupy fringes of the Sanctuary and bets (islands) having grassland and scrubland vegetation. Taking adequate and effective management decisions and monitoring would be difficult in absence of reliable information. Line transect sampling will ensure robust population estimate of Khur. By bridging this gap with adequate information, meaningful and effective management decisions can be taken. We have conducted line transect surveys using foot and vehicle transect following distance sampling in southern fringe as intensive study site. The density estimates (No./km2 ± SE) in southern fringe of LRK during two surveys were 5.76 ± 0.91, 6.08 ± 1.39 in winter and 2.29 ± 0.55 in summer from foot transect and 5.2 ± 0.73, 6.72 ± 1.12 in winter and 4.29 ± 0.87 in summer from vehicle transect, respectively. The study will help managers to evaluate long term monitoring method and make adaptive management decisions.

Remote technologies are producing leapfrog advances in identifying the routes and connectivity of migratory species, which are still unknown for hundreds of taxa, especially Asian ones. Here, we used GPS-telemetry to uncover the migration routes and breeding areas of the massive population of migratory Black-eared kites wintering around the megacity of Delhi-India, which hosts the largest raptor concentration of the world. Kites migrated for 3300–4800 km along a narrow corridor, crossing the Himalayas at extremely high elevations (up to > 6500 m a.s.l.) by the K2 of the Karakoram Range and travelled long periods at elevations above 3500 m. They then crossed/circumvented the Taklamakan Desert and Tian Shan Range to reach their unknown breeding quarters at the intersection between Kazakhstan, Russia, China and Mongolia. Route configuration seemed to be shaped by dominant wind support and barrier avoidance. Wintering ranges were smaller than breeding ranges and concentrated around Delhi, likely in response to massive human food-subsidies. Our results illustrate that high-elevation crossings by soaring migrants may be more common than previously appreciated and suggest the delineation of a hitherto poorly-appreciated “Central Asian Flyway”, which must funnel hundreds of thousands of migrants from central Asia into the Indian subcontinent via multiple modes of the Himalayan crossing.

Reintroduction of endangered species is an effective and increasingly important conservation strategy once threats have been addressed. The greater one-horned rhinoceros and swamp buffalo have declined through historic hunting and habitat loss. We identify and evaluate available habitat across their historic range (India, Nepal, and Bhutan) for reintroducing viable populations. We used Species Distribution Models in Maxent to identify potential habitats and evaluated model-identified sites through field visits, interviews of wildlife managers, literature, and population-habitat viability analysis. We prioritize sites based on size, quality, protection, management effectiveness, biotic pressures, and potential of conflict with communities. Our results suggest that populations greater than 50 for rhinoceros and 100 for buffalo were less susceptible to extinction, and could withstand some poaching, especially if supplemented or managed as a metapopulation. We note some reluctance by managers to reintroduce rhinoceros due to high costs associated with subsequent protection. Our analysis subsequently prioritised Corbett and Valmiki, for rhino reintroduction and transboundary complexes of Chitwan-Parsa-Valmiki and Dudhwa-Pilibhit-Shuklaphanta-Bardia for buffalo reintroductions. Establishing new safety-nets and supplementing existing populations of these megaherbivores would ensure their continued survival and harness their beneficial effect on ecosystems and conspecifics like pygmy hog, hispid hare, swamp deer, hog deer, and Bengal florican.

Do you know that most humans now live in cities? This has caused a lot of trouble for many animal species. But a few opportunistic animals, like crows and pigeons that you commonly encounter in cities, benefit from dense human habitation. How does a very urbanized, paved, and populated landscape manage to support enormous flocks of birds in tropical cities? This is mostly unknown for urban birds like me: the Black Kite Milvus migrans. Researchers studying me in Delhi show that I depend on the food provided by humans and I prey on other common urban animals, such as pigeons and rats. The researchers of this article looked at the food that Muslims in the Indian subcontinent ritually offer kite birds and the impact these meat offerings have. Their analyses show that kite birds take cues from human activity, preferring densely populated areas in the city, with trees capable of holding a large nest, or road configurations that allow for easy access to human waste and ritual food.

Increasing rate of bear-human conflict and declining black bear population remains a conservation paradox throughout its distributional range. Sound information on the patterns and dynamics of bear occurrence seems prerequisite towards addressing this issue, particularly in sub-tropical and temperate ecosystems. We aimed to understand the patterns of space-use and distribution of Asiatic black bears Ursus thibetanus in the Khangchendzonga Biosphere Reserve (BR) of Eastern Himalaya, and the factors influencing the same. We also modelled the distribution and extent of suitable habitats for bears in the Khangchendzonga landscape. We used sign surveys, trail monitorings, camera trapping, occupancy based space-use modelling and presence-only habitat suitability modelling using Ecological Niche Factor Analysis (ENFA). Almost all the black bear evidences (98%) were recorded from temperate and subalpine habitats. Broadleaved and coniferous forests were the best predictors for bear occurrence, and the percentage of acorn producing trees in temperate zone was the most important factor positively influencing the proportion of site utilization by bears during pre-hibernation periods. ENFA results indicate black bear as a ‘habitat specialist species’ and delineated only a small portion of the Biosphere Reserve (5.35%) as highly suitable for its occurrence. These highly suitable patches mostly occurred in the buffer zone outside the National Park boundary and were therefore, found as more susceptible to conflicts. Such patterns in habitat preference highlight the importance of local landscapes and demand for site specific conservation and management strategies for black bears in Khangchendzonga.

Most large carnivore populations are declining across their global range except in some well managed protected areas (PA’s). Investments for conserving charismatic apex carnivores are often justified due to their umbrella effect on biodiversity. We evaluate population trends of two large sympatric carnivores, the tiger and leopard through spatially-explicit-capture-recapture models from camera trap data in Kanha PA, India, from 2011 to 2016. Our results show that the overall density (100 km−2) of tigers ranged between 4.82 ± 0.33 to 5.21 ± 0.55SE and of leopards between 6.63 ± 0.71 to 8.64 ± 0.75SE, with no detectable trends at the PA scale. When evaluated at the catchment scale, Banjar catchment that had higher prey density and higher conservation investments, recorded significant growth of both carnivores. While Halon catchment, that had lower prey and conservation investments, populations of both carnivores remained stable. Sex ratio of both carnivores was female biased. As is typical with large carnivores, movement parameter sigma (an index for range size), was larger for males than for females. However, sigma was surprisingly similar for the same genders in both carnivores. At home-range scale, leopards achieved high densities and positive growth rates in areas that had low, medium or declining tiger density. Our results suggest that umbrella-species conservation value of tigers is likely to be compromised at very high densities and therefore should not be artificially inflated through targeted management.

Publications in peer-reviewed journals are often looked upon as tenets on which future scientific thought is built. Published information is not always flawless and errors in published research should be expediently reported, preferably by a peer-review process. We review a recent publication by Gopalaswamy et al. (10.1111/2041-210X.12351) that challenges the use of “double sampling” in large-scale animal surveys. Double sampling is often resorted to as an established economical and practical approach for large-scale surveys since it calibrates abundance indices against absolute abundance, thereby potentially addressing the statistical shortfalls of indices. Empirical data used by Gopalaswamy et al. (10.1111/2041-210X.12351) to test their theoretical model, relate to tiger sign and tiger abundance referred to as an Index-Calibration experiment (IC-Karanth). These data on tiger abundance and signs should be paired in time and space to qualify as a calibration experiment for double sampling, but original data of IC-Karanth show lags of (up to) several years. Further, data points used in the paper do not match the original sources. We show that by use of inappropriate and incorrect data collected through a faulty experimental design, poor parameterization of their theoretical model, and selectively picked estimates from literature on detection probability, the inferences of this paper are highly questionable. We highlight how the results of Gopalaswamy et al. were further distorted in popular media. If left unaddressed, the paper of Gopalaswamy et al. could have serious implications on statistical design of large-scale animal surveys by propagating unreliable inferences.

Ecological imbalance owing to rapid urbanization and deforestation has adversely affected the population of several wild animals. This loss of habitat has skewed the population of several non-human primate species like chimpanzees and macaques and has constrained them to co-exist in close proximity of human settlements, often leading to human-wildlife conflicts while competing for resources. For effective wildlife conservation and conflict management, regular monitoring of population and of conflicted regions is necessary. However, existing approaches like field visits for data collection and manual analysis by experts is resource intensive, tedious and time consuming, thus necessitating an automated, non-invasive, more efficient alternative like image based facial recognition. The challenge in individual identification arises due to unrelated factors like pose, lighting variations and occlusions due to the uncontrolled environments, that is further exacerbated by limited training data. Inspired by human perception, we propose to learn representations that are robust to such nuisance factors and capture the notion of similarity over the individual identity sub-manifolds. The proposed approach, Primate Face Identification (PFID), achieves this by training the network to distinguish between positive and negative pairs of images. The PFID loss augments the standard cross entropy loss with a pairwise loss to learn more discriminative and generalizable features, thus making it appropriate for other related identification tasks like open-set, closed set and verification. We report state-of-the-art accuracy on facial recognition of two primate species, rhesus macaques and chimpanzees under the four protocols of classification, verification, closed-set identification and open-set recognition.

Growing urbanization is increasing human-wildlife interactions, including attacks towards humans by vertebrate predators, an aspect that has received extremely scarce investigation. Here, we examined the ecological, landscape and human factors that may promote human-aggression by raptorial Black kites Milvus migrans in the 16-millions inhabitants megacity of Delhi (India). Physical attacks depended on human activities such as unhygienic waste management, ritual-feeding of kites (mainly operated by Muslims), human density, and presence of a balcony near the nest, suggesting an association between aggression and frequent-close exposure to humans and derived food-rewards. Surprisingly, while more than 100,000 people could be at risk of attack in any given moment, attitudes by local inhabitants were strikingly sympathetic towards the birds, even by injured persons, likely as a result of religious empathy. These results highlight the importance of socio-cultural factors for urban biota and how these may radically differentiate the under-studied cities of developing countries from those of western nations, thus broadening our picture of human-wildlife interactions in urban environments. The rapid sprawling of urban and suburban areas with their associated food-subsidies is likely to increase proximity and exposure of large predators to humans, and vice versa, leading to heightened worldwide conflicts.

The connectivity between landscapes is an important aspect of the conservation of small and isolated populations of carnivores. We studied the natal dispersal pattern of Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris tigris) using motion-sensitive cameras and intensive searches from April 2005 to June 2011 in Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve (RTR), western India. We tracked 29 tiger cubs (18 males, 11 females) born during the study until they established independent territories. All the females and 72.2% of the males attained maturity. The males had a greater probability (92.3%) of dispersal compared with the females (36.4%). Males dispersed an average distance of 27.0 ± 12.7 (SE) km (range = 4.5–148 km), while females dispersed an average distance of 5.7 ± 3.03 km (range = 4.6–25.8 km) from their natal area to establish their independent territories. The average age of dispersal was 38.6 ± 2.6 months (range = 24–44 months) for the males and 27.7 ± 2.7 months (range = 25–33 months) for the females. Seven of the 11 females bred at >48 months’ age, after establishing independent territories. Of the other females, three were translocated to another protected area, and one died after the dispersal. This study adds to the baseline information about the dispersal patterns of tigers, which is important in making conservation and management decisions for restoration of tiger populations.