For the first time in a long while, the people who need to answer for India’s tiger deaths went to Bandhavgarh to do it in person.
human-wildlife conflict
Karnataka has lost 15 tigers, 13 leopards, and 19 people to human-wildlife conflict in six months. The state’s answer is to sterilise wild animals. The science — and the logic of what is actually driving conflict — says this is the wrong answer entirely.
Between October 2025 and April 2026, Karnataka lost 15 tigers, 13 leopards, 8 elephants, and 19 people to the widening fault line between humans and wildlife. Now the state is proposing to sterilise wild animals — and the science says that’s not the answer.
When People and Wildlife Share a Border: IUCN Publishes Global Guidelines on Human-Wildlife Conflict
A global framework for navigating the oldest tension in conservation — and India, where elephants killed 629 people last year, may need it more than anywhere.