“In just the past few weeks Indians have been mauled by tigers (in the west), attacked by leopards (in the north) and trampled by elephants (in the east). Like so many tragedies that occur with depressing frequency in the country—stampedes and bridge collapses are other good examples—these deaths highlight the failures of the state. Yet, in an odd way, they also reflect its successes. Indians are running into wild animals more often because India has become remarkably good at protecting them.

Consider the tiger. In the 1970s India’s national animal seemed to be heading towards extinction. Today the big stripey cat is thriving. Over the past two decades numbers have more than doubled to nearly 3,700, even as populations collapsed in richer and less crowded parts of Asia, such as Malaysia. So effective has India been in boosting the beast that it agreed to export tigers to Cambodia, where they had gone extinct. “Project Tiger”, as the conservation effort is known, has been a roaring success.

It is not the only one. A few years ago the western state of Gujarat opened a reserve to accommodate its expanding population of Asiatic lions. The chief minister of Assam, in the east, recently said that his state had in the previous year recorded zero cases of poaching related to its large and growing population of rhinos. Such triumphs have unleashed animal spirits. Since 2022 India has been importing cheetahs from Africa in the hope of re-establishing a species that went extinct within its borders in 1952.”

From The Economist.