Inside Similipal: Why Saving Tigers Starts With Growing Grass

A tiger’s next meal begins long before the hunt. In Similipal, part of that story starts with a blade of grass.

The Odisha reserve has begun a phased programme to restore more than 500 hectares of degraded meadows, seeking to repair the feeding grounds of the animals its big cats depend on. Forest teams are collecting local grass seeds, reviving damaged patches and developing nurseries to sustain the effort.

The ambition reaches beyond making barren ground green. It is about rebuilding the food chain beneath one of India’s most closely watched predators.

What is Similipal’s grassland restoration project?

The initiative targets damaged grassy patches within Similipal Tiger Reserve in Odisha’s Mayurbhanj district. Officials want to restore native vegetation that provides food for wild herbivores and, in turn, supports the reserve’s carnivores.

The current phase covers 70 hectares: 50 hectares in the South Wildlife Division and 20 hectares in the North Wildlife Division. The larger goal is to restore more than 500 hectares, equivalent to more than five square kilometres.

Separately, officials say around 40 hectares of barren patches were restored through complete seeding during FY26 and are showing signs of greening. These figures describe different stages of the work; the full target has yet to be achieved.

Tigers eat meat. Why should they care about grass?

Because their prey needs to eat first. Productive meadows provide feeding opportunities for herbivores. A stronger prey base can then support the predators that hunt them. Restoring grasslands is an attempt to improve that foundation.

“These grasslands are the foundation of the food chain. Healthy grasslands support herbivores, and these herbivores ultimately sustain carnivores, including tigers,” Prakash Chand Gogineni, Regional Chief Conservator of Forests and Field Director of Similipal Tiger Reserve, told ANI.

The relationship is indirect but crucial. Grass restoration supports the animals on a tiger’s menu; it does not amount to feeding tigers or guarantee an immediate rise in their numbers.

Isn’t a tiger reserve supposed to be a dense forest?

Similipal contains several kinds of habitat. Its official description identifies a landscape of hills, valleys, streams, rocky exposures, dense forests and grasslands. Those open patches belong to the landscape too. A meadow can perform a different ecological job from the forest beside it. Restoring existing degraded grasslands helps retain that variety.

The distinction matters here: the announced programme concerns damaged meadows and barren patches. It is not a proposal to replace healthy sal forest with grass. UNESCO’s account of the wider Similipal Biosphere Reserve highlights its extensive sal forests and rich plant diversity, including orchids and medicinal plants. Protecting that wider landscape requires attention to its different habitats.

How badly have Similipal’s meadows deteriorated?

According to forest officials cited by ANI, the roughly 2,750-square-kilometre tiger reserve has nearly 1,250 hectares of recorded meadows. More than 40 per cent of those grasslands have deteriorated because of grazing pressure and the spread of non-native weeds.

That percentage refers to the recorded grasslands, not the entire reserve. Officials link the deterioration to reduced herbivore populations in some pockets and greater difficulty for large carnivores in finding sufficient prey. Reviving these feeding grounds is intended to address that local weakness. The scale also explains why a relatively small part of a vast reserve can deserve focused attention: its value lies in the food and habitat it provides.

Why collect local seeds instead of buying grass seed?

The restoration teams are collecting seeds from native grasses already growing around Similipal. Officials say these grasses are suited to local soil, rainfall and climatic conditions and help preserve the landscape’s ecological character.

The aim is to recover locally appropriate vegetation. Simply producing a green surface would not establish that the right habitat had returned. Permanent grass-seed nurseries are also being developed to provide a dependable supply for subsequent restoration work. That gives the programme a way to continue beyond the first round of seed collection.

What is “complete seeding”, and is it working?

In the work described by officials, complete seeding involves sowing collected grass seeds across the selected restoration patches. The reserve tested four restoration methods and says this approach produced the best results. The approximately 40 hectares treated in FY26 are reportedly showing native grass growth. That is an encouraging early sign. But greening is only the beginning. Officials expect wildlife to use the restored patches as recovery and natural seed dispersal progress. The account does not yet establish a measured increase in prey populations attributable to the work.

Will restoring 500 hectares mean more tigers?

That is the conservation hope, rather than an outcome that can already be counted. The intended sequence is better grassland, improved food availability for herbivores and a more dependable prey base for tigers. Each step takes time, and the results need to be measured.

A meaningful assessment would look beyond hectares seeded: whether native grasses persist, whether invasive weeds return, and whether wild herbivores regularly use the recovering meadows. Longer-term monitoring would be needed to establish changes in prey abundance and benefits to tigers. Animals gathering at a restored patch would be useful evidence of habitat use. It would not, by itself, prove that the reserve’s overall prey population had grown.

Can grass restoration replace patrolling and anti-poaching work?

No. It addresses another part of the conservation challenge. Patrolling helps protect animals from direct threats. Habitat restoration seeks to improve the conditions that allow them to survive. The programme’s lasting value will depend on maintaining the recovering meadows and addressing the pressures that degraded them. For Similipal, the test will come after the first shoots appear: whether those patches remain productive and help sustain wildlife through successive seasons. The tiger may command the attention. This effort begins beneath its paws.

With inputs from ANI & agencies