NEW DELHI, May 23 (RIA Novosti) - India's national symbol, the tiger, is rapidly disappearing from the country's central states, according to a recent survey conducted by India's Natural Resources Institute and organizations dedicated to protecting tiger populations.
Survey results released Wednesday confirmed that only 500 tigers remained in the four central Indian states of Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh, or half the number that roamed the area in 2003.
The report's authors concluded that the main reason for the decline has been the destruction of local forests by loggers and poaching.
Experts said the new survey is far more accurate than past investigations, which relied primarily on indirect evidence of a tiger's presence, in that hidden cameras are now deployed widely to calculate their number.
