Project Tiger: India’s Conservation Success Story — A Timeline

Success brings a new problem: tigers outside reserves 2026

Reporting in September 2026 underlined the paradox of Project Tiger’s success. Officials estimate that 30–35% of India’s tigers now live outside protected areas, where they meet people, cattle and crops. In Karnataka alone, about 30 tigers were captured between September 2025 and May 2026 after conflict incidents.

At the same time, the distribution is uneven: 18 tiger reserves are reported to hold fewer than 10 tigers, and five have none. The Centre has backed a programme for managing tigers outside reserves, covering monitoring, conflict response and prey recovery.

The sixth national tiger count begins Census

Field work for the sixth All India Tiger Estimation began in January 2026. For the first time it includes Gujarat, where a young tiger had settled in the Ratanmahal landscape on the Madhya Pradesh border from early 2025, decades after the state last recorded a tiger, and Sikkim, where tigers were photographed in the Himalaya.

Besides tigers, the survey records prey, habitat quality and corridor condition. The national result is expected in 2027.

A record year for tiger deaths Crisis

NTCA data showed 166 tiger deaths in 2025, 40 more than in 2024. Madhya Pradesh, which has the most tigers, recorded 55, the highest for any state in a single year since Project Tiger began. A large share of the deaths occurred outside protected areas.

Experts pointed mostly to territorial fights as tigers run out of space, along with road and rail accidents, electrocution from illegal fences and some poaching.

Madhav becomes the 58th tiger reserve Milestone

Madhav National Park in Shivpuri district was declared India’s 58th tiger reserve, Madhya Pradesh’s ninth. Tigers had been reintroduced to Madhav in 2023 after an absence of many years.

Two new reserves in central India Milestone

Chhattisgarh notified Guru Ghasidas–Tamor Pingla as the 56th tiger reserve in November 2024. At about 2,829 sq km it is India’s third-largest, linking forests towards Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. Ratapani, near Bhopal, became the 57th in December 2024.

3,682 tigers: the detailed 2022 estimate Census

The Wildlife Institute of India’s full analysis of the 2022 survey, released on International Tiger Day, estimated an average of 3,682 tigers, with a range of 3,167 to 3,925, up from 2,967 in 2018. The government said India holds almost 75% of the world’s wild tigers.

Madhya Pradesh had the most (785), followed by Karnataka (563), Uttarakhand (560) and Maharashtra (444). Corbett had the highest number of any reserve (260). But parts of the Western Ghats showed local declines, and Mizoram, Nagaland, Jharkhand, Goa, Chhattisgarh and Arunachal Pradesh had small, worrying populations.

Fifty years of Project Tiger Milestone

At an event in Mysuru marking 50 years of the project, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a minimum estimate of 3,167 tigers from camera-trapped areas and launched the International Big Cat Alliance for seven big-cat species. By then the network had grown to 53 reserves over 75,796 sq km.

2,967 tigers in 2018 Census

The fourth cycle estimated 2,967 tigers, up a third from 2014. The survey placed camera traps across tens of thousands of locations and collected tens of millions of photographs; it was later recognised by Guinness World Records as the largest camera-trap wildlife survey.

Past 2,000: 2,226 tigers Census

The 2014 cycle estimated 2,226 tigers, up about 30% in four years. Wider use of camera traps made the figures more reliable, though gains were concentrated in the Western Ghats, central India and the Shivalik-Terai landscape.

First signs of recovery: 1,706 Census

The second scientific cycle estimated 1,706 tigers in 2010, up from 1,411. The good news came with a caveat: the area occupied by tigers outside protected areas had shrunk, making corridors between reserves a priority.

Panna loses its tigers, then gets new ones Crisis

Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh had lost its tigers to poaching, and in 2009 it was confirmed that no resident tigers remained. Two tigresses, from Bandhavgarh and Kanha, were moved in from March 2009, followed by a male from Pench later in the year.

Cubs were born from 2010, and Panna rebuilt a breeding population. It is now cited as one of the world’s most successful tiger reintroductions.

Tigers return to Sariska Milestone

A male tiger from Ranthambhore was flown by Indian Air Force helicopter to Sariska and released into an enclosure, the first time wild tigers had been reintroduced into an Indian reserve. A tigress followed on 4 July, and more transfers came in later years.

A sobering count: 1,411 tigers Census

The first national estimate using the new scientific method, carried out in 2006 by the NTCA and the Wildlife Institute of India, put the population at just 1,411. A 2001-02 pugmark census had reported more than 3,600.

The gap was not all a fall in tigers; much of it was a fall in over-counting. Either way, it reset the baseline from which all later progress is measured.

A new law and a new authority Law

Acting on the Tiger Task Force, Parliament amended the Wild Life (Protection) Act to create the National Tiger Conservation Authority, with statutory powers over tiger reserves, and to provide for a Wildlife Crime Control Bureau, which was set up in 2007. Reserves had to define inviolate core and buffer areas and prepare tiger conservation plans.

Sariska’s tigers vanish Crisis

Investigations confirmed that Sariska, a reserve since 1978, had no tigers left; they had been poached while official records still showed them present. The scandal prompted the Prime Minister to set up a Tiger Task Force chaired by Sunita Narain, whose 2005 report called for better science, stronger enforcement and partnership with forest communities.

Expansion and a poaching wave Crisis

The network kept growing, to about 15 reserves by the late 1980s and 23 by 1997. But the government itself acknowledges that the 1980s saw a decline due to extensive poaching, driven by demand for skins and for tiger bone in traditional medicine markets abroad. Counting still relied on pugmarks, which hid the scale of losses.

Project Tiger is launched Milestone

Project Tiger was launched at Corbett National Park with nine tiger reserves: Bandipur, Corbett, Kanha, Manas, Melghat, Palamau, Ranthambhore, Similipal and Sundarbans. The plan, drafted by a task force chaired by Dr Karan Singh under Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, aimed to save tigers by protecting entire ecosystems.

Forester Kailash Sankhala became its first director.

A law and a shock count Law

Parliament passed the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972, giving India a national framework for protected species and areas. The same year, the first all-India tiger census, based on pugmarks, found only about 1,827 tigers.

The alarm is raised Crisis

Conservationists meeting in New Delhi at the 1969 IUCN General Assembly warned that the tiger was in danger. India’s Indian Board for Wild Life recommended stopping the export of wild-cat skins, and by July 1970 tiger hunting had been banned across India.