The number of Royal Bengal tigers in Suklaphanta National Park in the western plains has increased from 36 in 2022 to 44 in the latest count, officials said. 

The Park, in its report, said that the annual monitoring, conducted through the analysis of camera traps from December 10 to December 31 last year, revealed the presence of 24 adult male tigers and 17 adult tigresses in the park.

Similarly, the park administration conducted rhino monitoring from February 17 to March 5, which found 23 adult rhinos, three more than last year.

Pramod Bhattarai, Warden of the Suklaphanta National Park, said the findings were part of the annual monitoring of tiger and rhino populations, its prey, and habitats.

The counting was based on the camera traps set up around the known habitat of tigers. The park was divided into 92 grids, each with a pair of camera traps, which was monitored for fifteen days. 

This result marks another milestone for the national park, where both tigers and rhinos were on the brink of extinction just a few decades ago. In 2013, there were only 17 tigers. The number of one-horned rhinoceros, also known as Indian rhinoceros or greater one-horned rhinoceros, was only 5 in 2008.

Suklaphanta, located in the far western Nepal bordering Dudhwa National Park in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, is also home to swamp deer, python, blackbuck, elephants, hispid hare, and 460 species of birds, according to the Department of National Park and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC).

Nepal is considered a success story in tiger conservation, with the population of the big cat almost tripling from 121 in 2009 to 355 in 2022.

It is the second country after India to meet its commitment to double the number of tigers by 2022, a highly ambitious 12-year goal set by the St. Petersburg Tiger Summit in 2010. According to the World Wildlife Fund, around 3,900 tigers are left in the wild globally.

The growing tiger population has also intensified human-wildlife conflicts. Exact figure is hard to come by but at least 80 people have lost their lives in tiger attacks in the last five years, mainly individuals from indigenous communities living near forest areas and dependent on forest resources for livelihood, according to DNPWC data. 

Some activists and affected families have long questioned the sustainability of Nepal’s conservation approach, accusing the government of prioritizing wildlife over humans.