Bhopal’s ‘urban tigers’ & humans live and let live

When night falls over Bhopal, the city belongs to the tigers. Unseen, yet ever-present, they prowl through the green corridors that cut across an urban sprawl of 2.4 million residents, leaving only paw prints and camera-trap images as proof. To protect this rare harmony, the MP forest department is rolling out AI-based camera traps and installing an extra e-eye tower to generate real-time alerts, blending technology with conservation.

Twenty-two tigers share the southern and eastern landscapes in and around the municipal limits, yet most people have never seen one. There have been no attacks, no conflicts. Officials say the big cats have become masters of camouflage, perfectly adapting to survive in an urban world.

Locals have internalised this coexistence. “When I was looking for a house on the southern side of Bhopal, a resident casually warned me, ‘Tiger kabhi bhi aa jata hai yahan’ ,” a senior officer recalled. “That simple remark captures the unique reality of this city — people here have learned to live with tigers as silent neighbours.”

“We are introducing AI-based camera traps to monitor tiger movement and installing an additional e-eye tower to generate instant alerts for our monitoring teams,” said L Krishnamurteey, APCCF (wildlife).

What ‘Operation Durga’ found

Though tigers had roamed the area for years, the city’s extraordinary relationship with big cats first came to light in 2012, when a camera trap captured an image of a tiger moving along Bhopal’s southern fringes. Alarmed, forest officials launched ‘Operation Durga,’ a large-scale effort to tranquilise and relocate what they believed was a lone predator near human settlements.

At the time, Krishnamurteey was posted as divisional forest officer in Bhopal and personally led the high-stakes operation. For 20 days, teams of guards, trackers, and elephants scoured the KerwaKaliasot forests. Instead of finding one tiger, they discovered several quietly thriving in the city’s fragmented green patches. These tigers were not aggressive: they were elusive, intelligent, and experts at staying out of sight.

Moved by their behaviour, forest guards and rangers requested their seniors to abandon the capture plan, assuring they could manage the animals without disturbance. The operation was called off — and a silent, unspoken pact of coexistence was born. Today, more than a dozen tigers inhabit the forested corridors around Bhopal’s southern boundary. Studies reveal they have adapted their movement patterns to avoid humans, mostly becoming active between 11pm and 6am.

“Operation Durga changed our understanding of urban wildlife,” Krishnamurteey told TOI . “We realised these tigers were not intruders; they were residents who had learned to live alongside humans without conflict. That discovery reshaped our approach to conservation.”

Delicate balance under threat

Though Bhopal’s tigers have coexisted peacefully with humans for over a decade, their rising numbers have caused tension in the bureaucracy. One faction pushes for urbanisation, while another stresses conservation. Under pressure from some senior bureaucrats, the Madhya Pradesh wildlife headquarters, at one point, even questioned the presence of 22 tigers in and around the city. Field officers countered with a detailed dossier — complete with geo-tagged evidence, photographs, and behavioural data, establishing their existence.

The report confirmed that six tigers had established territories within city limits, while others, including nine cubs, roam a 5km buffer. Officers argue these big cats have successfully adapted to the urban environment, making Bhopal a rare example of coexistence. However, they warn that unchecked development could upset this balance.

What do urban tigers eat? Bhopal DFO Lokpriya Bharti said though there have been no incidents of human-tiger conflict in the city for many years, cattle kills are reported occasionally. “We receive three-four cases a month, and provide compensation following norms,” he added.

Conservationists also caution that harmony may not last unless wild corridors are protected. The tiger-friendly patches of Kerwa and Kaliasot face growing urban pressure. The challenge is not with people, but with land development, nightlife, and new construction threatening critical habitats. The report even highlights tiger cubs playing near restaurants — a sign of their adaptation, but also how close humans and tigers now live.

Expanding the Buffer Zone

Managing urban tigers also means navigating multiple stakeholders — businessmen, politicians and bureaucrats who own properties in the area. “As far as I know, the areas occupied by Bhopal’s urban tigers fall outside the notified buffer. It would be wise to include Mendora, Mendori, and Kaliasot in the Ratapani Tiger Reserve buffer and exclude them from incompatible development projects like roads, factories, mining, and urban expansion,” said Suhas Kumar, former principal chief conservator of forests, who spent 23 of his 35 years in service managing protected areas.

Wildlife activist Ajay Dubey has called for the creation of a conservation reserve under the Wildlife Act to safeguard Bhopal’s urban tigers. His petition, filed after a tiger was trapped near the Agriculture Institute on Berasia Road, had been pending in court since 2015.