About Tiger Watch

Communities We Work With

The Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve is a landscape surrounded by humans and is under much anthropogenic pressure. Tiger Watch’s interventions are completely dependent on the participation of local communities.Our first and oldest engagement is with the Mogya traditional hunting tribe. Following the third tiger poaching crisis in the mid 2000’s, Tiger Watch provided key intelligence that allowed the state police to arrest numerous poaching gangs.  Tiger Watch sought to wean the tribe off of poaching by bringing the next generation of the Mogya traditional hunting tribe into the mainstream through education.The success of our anti-poaching work resulted in the tiger population rebounding from 18 in 2005 to more than 60 today. With 50% of the tigers outside of the reserve, there came a whole new set of challenges. Thus in partnership with the Rajasthan Forest Department, the Village Wildlife Volunteer Program was born.Tiger Watch selected volunteers from villages on the periphery of Ranthambhore Tiger Reserve. The volunteers belong to pastoral communities and are  skilled in tracking and identifying wildlife. Tiger Watch trains them in basic field techniques such as camera trapping.  The VWV relay critical intelligence regarding wildlife monitoring and anti- poaching to Tiger Watch and the Forest Department using smartphones .