top of page
Search

Tiger Poaching in Vidarbha: A Persistent Threat in 2025

Tiger Poaching in Vidarbha: A Persistent Threat Even in 2025
Tiger Poaching in Vidarbha: A Persistent Threat Even in 2025

Tiger poaching has reared its head again in Vidarbha, with a forest guard discovering a fresh snare in the Tadoba Andhari reserve last week.


Maharashtra’s forest department says it’s the third such find this month, pointing to a problem that refuses to fade. The region, home to some of India’s last big cat strongholds, has been battling this shadow trade for years.


With tiger numbers up but deaths still trickling in, the latest snare is a stark reminder that Vidarbha’s forests remain a target, and the hunters aren’t backing off.



A Past Painted in Stripes


Vidarbha’s forests have long been a haven for tigers, their numbers once so vast that colonial hunters saw them as trophies waiting to be claimed.


Back then, India was home to perhaps 40,000 of these cats, their roars echoing across plains and jungles. But that was before the rifles of the British Raj and the growing hunger for tiger parts turned abundance into scarcity.


By the time India gained independence, the damage was done. Tigers were no longer just animals, they were commodities.


The shift from hunting to poaching took root in the late 20th century. The 1990s marked a grim chapter when international demand for bones and skins, often destined for traditional medicine markets in East Asia, began pulling strings from afar.


Gangs started creeping into the region’s reserves, places like Tadoba Andhari and Melghat, drawn by the promise of quick cash. Traps were set, poisons laid out, and tigers vanished, their parts funnelled into a shadowy trade stretching beyond India’s borders.


The real wake-up call came in 2013. Over 30 tigers were wiped out in a single year, their deaths pinned on a gang from Katni in Madhya Pradesh. These weren’t lone operators but a network, skilled and ruthless, known as the Baheliya community.


When the arrests came, the confessions spilled out. Skins were sold in Haryana, claws traded in Delhi, a supply chain that mocked the forest’s boundaries. The Maharashtra government didn’t sit and called in the Central Bureau of Investigation, a move that showed just how deep the problem ran.


Back in 2009, Tadoba had already sounded alarms when four tigers disappeared during the monsoon, their absence a stark warning that Vidarbha was a battleground.



What’s striking isn’t just the numbers but the faces behind them. Take Kuttu Chiyalal Pardhi, a man from the Pardhi tribe, whose hunting skills were once a matter of survival.

By 2013, he’d admitted to killing three tigers in Vidarbha, his actions a mix of desperation and opportunity.


Poverty had turned tradition into crime, and the forest paid the price. It’s a glimpse into a world where the line between right and wrong blurs under the weight of empty pockets.


The Modern Chase

Tiger Poaching in Vidarbha in 2025
Tiger Poaching in Vidarbha in 2025

Fast forward to 2025, and Vidarbha’s tigers are still caught in a tug-of-war. Their numbers are climbing. Maharashtra’s tiger count hit 444 in 2022, up from 312 four years earlier, thanks to years of hard work under Project Tiger and the National Tiger Conservation Authority.


Patrols sweep the forests, metal detectors hunt for traps, and task forces keep watch. Groups like WWF-India have pitched in too, handing over vehicles and water trucks to bolster the front lines. On paper, it’s progress, more stripes in the wild, more hope in the air.


But the ground tells a different story. January 2025 brought eight tiger deaths, two flagged as suspicious, with whispers of poaching floating through the reports. Just months earlier, in 2024, three of 12 deaths across Maharashtra were confirmed as poaching cases, leading to nine arrests.

The culprits aren’t always strangers. Local farmers in Tadoba’s buffer zones have been caught rigging electric fences, while gangs from neighbouring states keep crossing borders.

In 2019, Bhandara saw a local crew nabbed with tiger skins and claws, proof that the threat isn’t just external.



In March 2025, a bombshell dropped of a poaching racket tied to digital payments worth ₹8 crore.

This wasn’t cash stuffed in bags. It was transactions pinging through phones, linking Chandrapur to Shillong and beyond, possibly to Myanmar and China.


The forest department didn’t hesitate, roping in the Enforcement Directorate to chase the cash. It’s a jarring shift, poachers trading snares for smartphones, turning an old crime into a high-tech heist.


The stakes are high. Vidarbha’s reserves aren’t just patches of green, they’re lifelines for a species that’s clawed its way back from the edge.


India’s tiger population sits at 3,682 as of the latest count, and Maharashtra’s share matters. Every loss ripples, and every snare tightens the knot. The forest guards know it, the poachers know it, and the tigers feel it.



Voices from the Frontline


Step into the shoes of a forest guard in Tadoba and you will see tracks that could lead to a tiger or a trap, hear the crack of a twig that might mean danger.


These men and women aren’t just clocking hours, they’re holding a line. One guard, speaking anonymously to a Nagpur paper, described finding a tiger’s whiskers in 2020, a tiny clue to a bigger crime. “We walk miles, but they’re always a step ahead,” he said, frustration lacing his words. The gear helps, metal detectors, night-vision goggles, but the forest is vast, and the poachers are patient.

A poacher arrested in 2019, a farmer from Bhandara, didn’t fit the villain mould. He’d killed a tiger to protect his crops, he claimed, but the skin in his shed told a different tale. “What else could I do?” he asked investigators, his voice caught between regret and defiance. For some, a tiger’s worth more dead than alive, £1,000 or more on the black market, a fortune in a place where fields barely pay.


Conservationists see the bigger picture. An NTCA official in Nagpur, interviewed by The Hindu in 2025, pointed to the digital racket as a game-changer. “We’ve got more tigers, but we’ve got smarter enemies,” he said. His team’s been pushing for tighter laws and better tech, but the clock’s ticking. Every patrol, every arrest, is a scramble to keep ahead of a trade that’s gone global.



The numbers back up the tension. In 2020, Tadoba lost at least one tiger to poaching, its whiskers seized from a local stash. Five years earlier, Melghat reported similar losses, snares dotting the landscape.

Compare that to 2013’s 30-plus deaths, and you’d think things have calmed. The poachers haven’t stopped, but they’ve adapted. The forest’s guardians are winning battles, but the war’s far from over.


Vidarbha’s story is about what we choose to value. The forest department’s latest move, teaming up with central agencies, shows a shift, a nod to how tangled this mess has become.

Digital trails to Shillong, whispers of Myanmar, a trade that’s outgrown rusty traps.


Yet, it’s still local. A farmer’s fence, a tribal hunter’s snare, a gang’s greed, all threads in the same web.


What’s next isn’t clear. The tigers are holding on, their numbers are a fragile victory against a tide that keeps pushing.



References




bottom of page