The Hindu : Other States / Orissa News : WII to declare tiger status

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Friday, Oct 26, 2007
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WII to declare tiger status

Satyasundar Barik

Researchers are studying 21 factors

Tigers have territory but it keeps changing
WII will also look into beach erosion factor

BHUBANESWAR: Putting speculation to rest, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) said it would come out with status of tigers in Similipal Reserve by the end of December this year.

"The assessment of tiger population in the sanctuary will take time. Hopefully by December-end, we will give the report. We are, however, not going to give absolute numbers of tigers," WII Director P. R Sinha told The Hindu here on Thursday.

Dismissing media reports that said the tiger number had come down in the sanctuary, Mr. Sinha said, "the Government of India has not yet spelt out any figure on this. I don’t know how it has come out. The estimation has not been finalised. We will be conducting another round of study in two more zones in November." "Tigers do have territory but it keeps changing.

They don’t recognise our boundary. The report will give distribution of tiger population using pugmark techniques and feline density on the basis of camera trap estimation," he said.

Olive Ridley movement

The WII Director said researchers were studying 21 factors to know the status of tigers in the sanctuary. Eleven factors would be based on date base while rest 10 will be analysed on remote sensing inputs, he said. "The institute will also provide all other information which is crucial for tiger population. They include distribution of tigers in different forest zones and availability of prey," Mr. Sinha said.

The WII Director, along with R. B Lal, Inspector-General of Forest (wildlife) from MoEF, had come to visit Olive Ridley congregation points along the Orissa coast to assess the progress of an ongoing study.

The WII had fitted satellite telemetric transmitters on back of Olive Ridley sea turtles to observe their movements.

"The study is unique in itself. Nowhere in the world had the study been conducted using 70 transmitters. The study would throw lights on likely impact of turtle distribution on oil exploration which was being done off the Orissa coast," Mr. Sinha said.

He said WII had kept track of a turtle for highest 240 days through the transmitters those were fitted last year. "Preliminary analysis pointed out that the turtles had visited coast of Sri Lanka, Myanmar and Andaman and returned to the coast," Mr. Sinha said.

This time, researchers would fit a few transmitters on male Olive Ridleys in deep sea during next two to three months, he said.

Besides, the WII would look into beach erosion factor by studying change in land pattern of 40 km on both south and north side of Gahirmatha Sanctuary, Mr. Sinha said.

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