New Delhi, Dec 31 - In a New Year gift to wildlife enthusiasts, the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) Monday said 11 states across the country have notified core tiger habitats.Of the 17 states with tiger reserves, 11 states - Andhra Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Mizoram, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, and West Bengal - have notified the core tiger habitats, a statement released here said.Four tiger states Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Kerala and Uttar Pradesh have taken a decision to notify the core tiger habitats soon.'Only two states, Jharkhand and Orissa, are yet to finalize notification,' the statement added.The notification means tigers, whose numbers are constantly dwindling in India, will get better protection and their conservation efforts will get a boost.Though the PMO did not give details of the reserves, it said the notification covers an area of nearly 31,940 sq km of tiger reserves to support a viable population of wild tigers in the country.Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been taking avid interest in the conservation of big cats and has also set up a Tiger Task Force to tackle the problem.According to partial census made public in May 2007, only 490 tigers are left in the 16 reserves of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh. The 2002 census had recorded 1,233 tigers in these states.The complete report of the tiger census will be made public by the second week of January 2008.
(c) Indo-Asian News Service
