NEW DELHI: The government on Friday informed the Lok Sabha that 237 tigers died in the country in the last two years. It said 23% of deaths from 2012 to 2017 were due to poaching and 55% due to natural causes.

Junior environment minister Mahesh Sharma said 7% of the deaths was due to unnatural causes not attributable to poaching (like deaths in traffic accidents or in human-wildlife conflict situation).

In case of the remaining 15%, the authorities found body parts or seized such parts at different point of time during the period — it means such deaths may or may not be due to poaching and that’s why such deaths are put in a different category.

