The stakeholders participating in an interaction programme on the conservation of tiger at Gulariya in Bardia on Sunday expressed their serious concern over the conservation of tigers in the country.

Participants included the officials from the Ministry of Forests and Environment, Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation and Bardiya National Park also held discussion on their action-plans to protect the wild cats whose number was put at 198 by a census in 2013.

Bardiya National Park's Chief Manoj Kumar Shah shared that there were six spices of tigers found in various 13 countries in Asia, among which three species had already gone extinct.

Shah further said the government has announced a five-year tiger conservation action plan (2016-2020) with a vision to increase tiger population to 250 by 2022.

Similarly, National Trust for Nature Conservation's Shyam Kumar Thapa informed that the concerned agencies were making collective efforts for the conservation of these endangered big cats.

According to him, a total of 83 ponds were to be made in different places and forestation will be done in the dry places across the Bardiya National Park.

Likewise, Federation of Nepali Journalists (FNJ) Bardiya Chapter President Rajendra Dhital demanded compensation for the people whose crops were destroyed by the wild animals in the Park. RSS