Eco Watch | Tiger alerts: AI to the rescue

As India’s tiger population expands beyond protected reserves, wildlife managers are turning to artificial intelligence to prevent deadly encounters—the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) recorded 418 human deaths nationwide (2020-’25) due to tiger attacks. An experiment is now under way at the Pench tiger landscape, where an AI-driven Tiger Alert System, developed by Maharashtra government’s tech arm MARVEL, uses bioacoustics to detect alarm calls from prey species and warn villages of big cat movement.

Acoustic sensors installed in forests analyse sounds and calls of species such as deer and langurs in real time and send alerts to forest officials and local communities when a tiger is nearby.

Recent incidents have underscored the challenge. Madhya Pradesh’s Bandhavgarh Tiger Reserve alone has seen at least five fatal tiger attacks in the past two months. The incidents have triggered protests and renewed demands for stronger conflict-mitigation measures.

Experts say the rise in encounters is partly a consequence of India’s conservation success. Tiger numbers have recovered significantly over the past two decades, leading to dispersal into buffer forests, revenue lands and other human-dominated areas. While officials stress that technology alone cannot prevent conflict, the Pench project does point to a shift in conservation strategy—from responding to attacks to predicting and preventing them.