When I was growing up, there were far more tigers, even in Nashik district[1]. One of my most vivid memories from growing up is when we were driving to a near by place called Bhandardara. My father was in charge of constructing a tunnel to store water for a hydroelectric power plant and we took this trip many times. We were driving early morning and at around 6.30am, our driver stopped as he could see a tiger cub lying on the street. Our guess was a vehicle had hit it and it needed help. But we could not risk getting out of the car in case the mother shows up. This is before mobile telephones (circa 1994). All we could do was to turn back and reach nearest police station and call forest department for help. Sadly the cub never made it, it was run over and died long before we came across it. Often it is said that we dont always see change in environment as it happens slowly over generation, but drop in tiger population happened very fast. Even though there are no tigers left in my district, I am very glad the population is rising elsewhere in India.

[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nashik_district