Other States - Orissa   

New techniques for tiger census

Baripada: Nearly 3,600 forest beats, spread over 50 forest division holding tiger territories, will conduct the head-counting of the Royal Bengal Tigers under the new methodology called "Line Transact technique".

The new technique devised by Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun Senior Scientist Qamar Qureshi and noted wildlife biologist Yadvendradev Jhala, would now replace the traditional pugmark-based census, forest department sources said.

The new module, the experts claimed, has been suitably changed and updated to lend more credibility to the census. A two-day training programme for imparting "training to the master trainers" was recently held at Kaziranga in Assam.

Orissa principal chief conservator of Forests and Chief Wild Life Warden Suresh Chandra Mohanty said the exact date of the eight-day long first phase of census will be announced soon.

As per the new method, a sample belt of vegetation will first be marked off for the study and identifying the belt, the tiger territories' terrain would be divided into three categories such as high, medium and low density tiger areas.

The forest beat in each territory would be considered as the sampling unit and areas within the beat having maximum potential of tiger occupancy would be intensively searched.

The people who have sufficient knowledge on the terrain and habitat features of the beat would be employed to conduct the search for tiger signs.

According to experts, although there is no escaping from the number game, the new methodology seeks to answer questions like the trend of the tiger population in the country as a whole, the tiger reserves, where the tiger is locally extinct and the new areas they have colonised, habitat quality, prey availability and other characteristics.

The Pugmark based technique followed all over the country for headcounting of the Big cat, since 1972 was invented in early 1970s by late Sarojraj Chowdhury, noted wildlife expert and the first Field Director of Simlipal Tiger Reserve.

UNI

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New techniques for tiger census

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