The latest Wayanad data show that Kerala’s human–wildlife crisis is no longer confined to elephants—it’s closing in on tigers. A sophisticated new study using machine-learning models has mapped patterns of human–elephant interactions in Wayanad, yet the same landscape is also one of India’s most fragile tiger corridors. What the data expose is not just ecological tension but political neglect: a state that collects information but refuses to act on it.
In the last 15 years, Kerala recorded 1,527 human deaths linked to wildlife encounters. Most were snakebites and elephant incidents, but tigers were blamed for 11 fatalities—four of them between 2021 and 2025. Behind those numbers lies a broader collapse in habitat planning. Wayanad, once a seamless passage between Nagarhole, Bandipur, and Mudumalai, is now a broken link in the Western Ghats tiger network.
Wayanad data
The study, published in Global Ecology and Conservation and reported by Mongabay India, uses an ensemble of ten machine-learning algorithms to predict hotspots of human–elephant encounters. But its methodology—mapping fine-scale ecological and human variables—could equally guide tiger conflict prediction. Kerala’s forest department, however, has yet to apply these tools beyond elephants.
The researchers analysed 1,942 incident records from 2011 to 2014 and identified 15 variables shaping conflict risk. Population density emerged as the top factor, with risk peaking around 400 people per km². Proximity to protected areas was another—risk increased within 15 km of reserve boundaries, the same buffer zones where tigers from Wayanad and Bandipur cross farms at night. If that pattern is clear in elephants, the Wayanad data suggest similar corridors of danger for tigers.
Yet the government’s response to human-tiger conflicts remains mechanical: fences, flashlights, and compensation cheques. In 2024 alone, 450 human–wildlife incidents were logged in Wayanad, many along routes historically used by both elephants and tigers. Each new electric fence saves a crop but blocks a predator’s path. Instead of preventing tragedy, it multiplies it.
Tigers Outside the Map
Kerala’s tiger strategy, like its elephant one, is built on denial. Officials highlight the state’s small tiger population—around 200 individuals—as evidence that conflict is “manageable.” But genetic studies already show isolation between Wayanad’s tigers and those in Nagarhole. The fences around coffee estates and settlements are fragmenting corridors faster than any poacher could. When a tiger attacks livestock near Kurichiyat or Muthanga, it is not a rogue—it’s a refugee from a shrinking range.
The Wayanad data also expose bureaucratic inertia. Despite using cutting-edge modelling, the study’s authors admit that policy uptake has been zero. Kerala’s forest department still acts on gut instinct, not predictive science. By ignoring quantitative warning signs, it repeats the same reactive cycle: drive the animal away, pay compensation, rebuild the fence, and call it coexistence.
Political Apathy and Data Denial
The irony is that Kerala brands itself as “data-driven.” But when the Wayanad data point to uncomfortable truths—unsustainable land-use, failing corridors, and negligent planning—the government goes silent. The state’s environment ministry has neither acknowledged the research nor released its own tiger-conflict datasets. Transparency would mean publishing yearly risk maps, inviting peer review, and involving local communities in policy testing. Instead, secrecy prevails.
True coexistence cannot be achieved by treating wildlife as collateral to agriculture. The study’s authors propose adding two social layers—the willingness-to-coexist index and expert-opinion mapping—to refine predictions. These tools could equally guide tiger policy, distinguishing areas of tolerance from zones of fear. But implementing them requires political courage and bureaucratic humility—two traits largely absent from Kerala’s conservation apparatus.
Beyond Elephants: Data for All Species
The lessons of Wayanad data extend to every species. Tigers, leopards, and elephants share overlapping ranges and threats. A unified data-first approach could prevent the kind of retaliatory killings now rising along Kerala’s forest fringes. If implemented properly, these predictive models could help design early-warning systems, real-time response teams, and corridor-protection maps.
The cornerstone of conservation lies in restoring ecological continuity, not walling it off. Each dataset ignored is another step toward extinction masked as management.
Kerala has the scientists and the tools—but its government continues to weaponise bureaucracy against science. Unless data lead to accountability, the next set of Wayanad data will read less like research and more like an obituary for the Western Ghats tiger.
Source: Mongabay India
Photo: Mongabay India
