"High tiger density is both a success and a challenge." Examine with reference to Kaziranga.

Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve (KNPTR) holds 148 adult tigers at 18.65 per 100 sq km — the world's third-highest density after Bandipur and Corbett [1]. Such saturation vindicates India's protection model, yet it simultaneously exports pressure beyond park boundaries.

Success: density as proof of effective protection

• Statutory strength: the tiger is a Schedule I species under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972; Project Tiger (1973) and the NTCA — statutory since the 2006 amendment — provide funding, protocols and audit for reserves [2].
• Source population: high-density reserves seed adjoining landscapes. The Biswanath Wildlife Division, sampled for the first time, recorded 27 tigers, lifting the KNPTR total [1].
• Habitat quality: Brahmaputra floodplain grasslands sustain a rich ungulate prey base, which reserve management is mandated to maintain for viable populations across India's 58 reserves [3].

Challenge: saturation shifts the conflict outward

• Dispersal into farmland: a three-month-old cub was found with its forelimbs tangled in a kitchen-garden net at Natungaon, Biswanath, and released into KNPTR after veterinary observation [4]. Fringe households, not the park, absorb the first risk.
• Capacity and protocol: NTCA's SOPs on orphaned or abandoned cubs [5] and straying tigers [6] demand veterinary support and trained teams that thinly-staffed divisions struggle to provide.
• Flood-driven movement: monsoon inundation drives animals across NH-715 towards the Karbi Anglong hills, causing vehicle deaths — the reason for the Kaziranga Elevated Corridor [7].
• Uneven national picture: growth is concentrated, while many reserves still lack an adequate prey base or habitat quality [8].

Thus density is a success at the site but a challenge at the landscape scale. The way forward lies in restoring prey base in weak reserves before translocation, wildlife-sensitive road design, paid village reporting and rapid-response channels, and public disclosure of SOP compliance — converting conservation success into coexistence, in line with SDG 15 on terrestrial biodiversity.