MADRAS, India -- The future of the Indian tiger, the country's pride and national animal, does not look bright. It is being butchered not just in the darkness of the night but also in broad daylight.
Overnight, 26 tigers in the Sariska Project Tiger Reserve in the northern Indian state of Rajasthan seem to have vanished. A worried Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has urgently called for a probe into this mystery.
In Sariska, no tiger has been spotted for the past six months, and the World Wildlife Fund-India has said most of the 26 tigers that were counted in the last census could have been lost. An intense search recently confirmed the WWF's statement.