India had an average count of 3,682 tigers in 2022, wildlife authorities said on Saturday, refining data collected during the country’s latest tiger census that had earlier this year yielded a minimum count of 3,167.

The average number is 3,682 tigers, but the upper limit — the maximum estimated count — is 3,925, theUnion environment ministry said, releasing the findings of the detailed analysis by the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun.

The ministry said the new figures from the quadrennial tiger estimation exercise indicated that the tiger population had grown at about 6.1 per cent per year since the 2006 count. India currently accounts for about 75 per cent of the world’s tigers.

The tigers are scattered across 53 unfenced reserves across the country over a cumulative area of nearly 76,000 sq km, or about 2.3 per cent of India’s land area.

The new analysis says Madhya Pradesh has 785 tigers, the largest count among states, followed by Karnataka (563), Uttarakhand (560) and Maharashtra (444). But among tiger reserves, Corbett has the highest count (260), followed by Bandipur (150), Nagarhole (141), Bandhavgarh (135), Dudhwa (135), Mudumalai (114), Kanha (105), Kaziranga (104), the Sunderbans (100), Tadoba (97) and Sathyamangalam (85).

Central India and the Shivalik hills and Gangetic plains have witnessed increases in tiger populations, particularly in Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Maharashtra, but certain regions in the Western Ghats have experienced localised declines, the analysis found.

The analysis has estimated that a third (35 per cent) of India’s tiger reserves “urgently require habitat restoration, ungulate augmentation and tiger reintroduction” and underscored the need to “continue eco-friendly development, minimise mining impacts and rehabilitate mining sites”.