The sixth cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation — India’s national tiger census — is currently underway, having begun in January 2026. Phase I ground surveys are running across reserves and tiger corridors, with camera-trap deployment following. The final national report is expected in 2027.

India currently has approximately 3,682 wild tigers across 58 tiger reserves — a population that has more than doubled since 2006 and represents roughly 75% of the world’s total. This alone is a conservation story without parallel.

But the 2026 census is asking a different question.

Counting corridors, not just cats

Previous census cycles focused primarily on population: how many tigers, in how many reserves, with what prey density. The 2026 exercise has been themed “Landscape Connectivity” — a deliberate shift toward mapping the functional corridors between reserves rather than counting individuals within them.

The reasoning is straightforward: as tiger populations grow, young sub-adults disperse from their birth territories and must navigate landscapes increasingly criss-crossed by roads, farmland, and infrastructure. A Bandhavgarh tigress named Jhumri, for instance, was tracked travelling 400 km to Achanakmar Tiger Reserve in Chhattisgarh over several years. A young male from Kanha, identified as T-200, made similar long-range movements in 2023. Whether those journeys are possible at scale — and whether the corridors between India’s 58 reserves are functional or merely nominal — is what this census aims to determine.

Why it matters

Without connected corridors, tiger reserves risk becoming islands of extinction: isolated populations where inbreeding eventually weakens the gene pool. The 2026 census, in documenting which corridors are open and which are under pressure, will shape conservation and infrastructure policy for the next decade.

For wildlife enthusiasts, it is also a reminder that India’s tiger success story is not finished. It is entering its most complex chapter.