Even as India is striving hard to save big cats, a total of 78 tigers have died so far this year with over half of them victims to poaching, parliament was informed Tuesday.
Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan told the Lok Sabha that of the 78 tigers, 50 were poached and 28 had died natural deaths.
The number of tiger deaths was highest in the last three years with 56 dying in 2011 followed by 53 and 66 tiger deaths in 2010 and 2009 respectively.
According to the 2010 tiger census, there are 1,706 tigers left in the wild in India.