As the cold weather subsides and makes way for the hot dry season in Bandhavgarh, we ponder the challenges ahead. In 2025, the monsoon rains started early with hardly a dry day in May, previously unheard of in our Tigers4Ever tenure. Usually, our priority at this time of year is waterholes and ensuring that forest fires are quickly extinguished and damage minimised, but last year’s experience makes us cautious about other challenges too. As always, we are grateful for the brave men and women who risk their lives whatever the weather to keep wild tigers safe and for your continued support which makes their work possible. Thank you for your generosity and unerring support.

We’ve witnessed incredible progress over the last 16 years since the foundation of Tigers4Ever, with each year your support has helped us to do more. Not only have we seen phenomenal increases in wild tiger numbers in Bandhavgarh since 2010, with a population increase of more than five-fold, we have seen the influx of wild elephants, the return of Gaur (Indian Bison) and Barasingha (Swamp deer) which have enriched the diversity and strength of Bandhavgarh’s fragile ecosystem. Conservation is working but it brings new challenges like the need for more water, more space and more protection, three facets which we are trying to address every day. Sadly, more tigers means more poachers, more tiger-tiger conflict and more human-wildlife conflict too. Across India, the threat of poaching is escalating: in 2024, 126 wild tigers died. By the end of 2025, that number had risen to 167—a shocking 32.5% increase in a single year! Shockingly, in January 2026, 20 wild tigers were killed before the month end, with a further 16 deaths by 07 March 2026. If this trend continues, over 250 tigers could die this year. We cannot let that happen. Your support is critical to stop this devastating surge in poaching and protect every tiger we’ve fought so hard to save.

Your support is the lifeline for wild tigers in Bandhavgarh, Madhya Pradesh which is India’s proud “Tiger State”. Bandhavgarh is where our dedicated anti-poaching patrols operate and is where tiger numbers have soared to more than five times what they were when we began our vital work. Anti-poaching patrols are the first line of defence against wildlife crime and the beating heart of tiger conservation. Their impact goes far beyond protecting tigers – they safeguard habitats, prevent poaching, and create lasting benefits for local communities.

Our fight to save wild tigers isn’t over. We won’t let the poachers win! Wild tigers remain critically endangered, threatened by poaching, retaliatory poisoning, and the illegal wildlife trade. That’s why it’s essential that we maintain our anti-poaching patrols at the highest possible levels year round. Together, we can ensure these magnificent tigers not only survive but thrive.

Your donations ensure that we can continue this vital life-saving work, safeguarding wild tigers now and for the future generations to come.

We want to do more

Our anti-poaching patrollers work tirelessly in some of the planet’s most extreme and dangerous environments, performing one of the toughest jobs in the world. Three-quarters of the global wild tiger population is in India, with 3,167 wild tigers, 785 of which are found in Madhya Pradesh, and 226 of these are found in Bandhavgarh, where our anti=poaching patrollers operate.

Disturbingly the number of snare wires and signs of anchored traps are increasing again. Farmers frequently tie wire snares around the boundary of their crops and villages to prevent crop raiding, but these wire snares are indiscriminate and kill tigers and leopards too, if they are undetected. Shockingly, many farmers are now electrifying the fences around their crops, initially intended to give a deterrent jolt to invading elephants, these mains powered fences give sufficient charge to kill wild elephants AND all other animals. At Tigers4Ever, we are against the use of all electrified fencing opting for more traditional and wildlife friendly alternatives. (See our Forest Restoration project for details about the use of Cattle Proof Trenches (CPTs) and our Waterhole project for details about the use of solar-powered lighting to reduce human-wildlife conflict). We are now looking at the options for Bio-hedging supported by solar-powered PIR sensitive lights to dissuade farmers from using these lethal alternatives.

Our patrollers systematically remove loose wires and snares and fill the anchor points with sand or soil to prevent hidden tethered snares along the trails where tigers walk. They need to be extra vigilant against snares during foot patrolling as wires can be easily concealed and can snare a patroller’s foot too. Sadly, as mentioned above, an increase in tiger numbers inevitably has led to an increase in poaching too, and there is an increased risk to patrollers’ lives from the wire snares tethered to electrified fences too.

Wild tigers urgently need more habitat and protection, so our projects to restore lost forest habitat in Salkhania and create a new wild tiger corridor at Sarmania are essential to help accommodate more wild tigers. We also extended our patrolling range in 2025 to include areas where some of the sub-adult tigers from Bandhavgarh have migrated, but this means more patrolling and more equipment are needed too.

Protecting wild tigers and their habitat means more tiger cubs survive but with success comes greater responsibility. As tiger numbers grow and exceed the carrying capacity of their current habitat, urgent action is needed to prevent rising conflict. We’re already facing a critical tipping point in both human-wildlife and tiger-tiger encounters.

Thanks to your generous support, our patrols have helped to reduce unnatural tiger deaths in Bandhavgarh. But we cannot let our guard down as poachers are always watching, waiting for a chance to strike. Your donations have made it possible to extend increased patrols into April 2026. With your continued help, we can keep wild tigers safe through the coming months and beyond the 2026 monsoon season. If you’re able to give, now is the time. Every donation truly makes a difference.

We are proud of our patrollers and their amazing efforts to keep wild tigers safe. During the last 4 years their workload has increased 3-fold, and they have responded with outstanding effort and hard work whilst poaching activity around India has reached a 15-year high. It is a miracle that we continue to keep so many wild tigers safe!

When conflict incidents are coupled with the increased risk of poaching activities, it means that our patrollers need to be on high alert. We must ensure that we can maintain a minimum of tripled patrolling now, especially with increased poaching activity evident.

Making a Difference

Your continued support means that we are able to cover an extra 1800 km (1135 miles) of wild tiger territory each month with our tripled patrols. It is vital for our patrollers to have sufficient time to search for snares; traps and signs of poisoners around forest areas where human encroachment is widespread as poachers are more active now. We need to maintain our patrols around the periphery of villages where crop raiding and livestock killing is rife. Our increased patrolling helps us to curb human encroachment into wild tigers’ territories and allows us to provide safety advice for those trying to protect their crops and livestock from wandering elephants and tigers respectively.

With more than 226 wild tigers and cubs to keep safe, your help is essential. In the last quarter, we received news of 12 more precious tiny cubs which need our help. Your gift, however large or small can make a huge difference as to whether Bandhavgarh’s wild tigers and cubs can survive the unprecedented threats they face:

• Your gift of £12 ($16) will provide 3 nutritious hot meals each for 2 anti-poaching patrollers whilst they protect wild tigers.
• Your gift of £30 ($40) will help us to pay a patrolling team for a day or will provide a day’s hot nutritious meals for a patrolling team whilst they work.
• Your gift of £45 ($60) will ensure that a team of anti-poaching patrollers can reach the remotest locations for a day’s patrolling.
• Your gift of £120 ($150) will enable a team of patrollers to cover 125km (78 miles) of wild tiger territory in a day.
• Your gift of £12 (US$16) per month will help us to pay an anti-poaching patroller to protect wild tigers for 35 days per year.

Without our help, we know that wild tigers will die; and more humans will be mauled or killed due to encroachment or human-tiger conflict. Sadly, with every human life lost comes another threat to the wild tiger’s survival in the form of retaliation; thus, we must protect both if we are to ensure that wild tigers can have a wild future.

Please don’t hesitate if you can help, your donation can be the difference between life and death for a wild tiger, as it helps to increase our patrolling when it is most needed. Every tiger and every tiger cub counts. Thank you for making our fight against poachers, the changing climate and human-animal conflict possible.