To save its tigers, India has relocated thousands of people—it could enlist their help instead

British colonialism turned India's tigers into trophies. Between 1860 and 1950, more than 65,000 were shot for their skins. The fortunes of the Bengal tiger, one of Earth's biggest species of big cat, did not markedly improve post-independence. The hunting of tigers—and the animals they eat, like deer and wild pigs—continued, while large tracts of their forest habitat became farmland.