On The Tiger's Trail - Telangana Foresters to Walk 57k km in State This November
This once-in-a-four-year exercise will focus on ‘sign’ surveys for carnivores and herbivores inside Telangana’s forests
HYDERABAD: Come November, the officials and staff of the Telangana forest department will cover a total of 57,600 km on foot inside the state’s forests, including its two tiger reserves at Amrabad and Kawal and in the rest of the wildlife sanctuaries and the reserve forest areas, as part of Phase-I of the 2026 All-India Tiger Estimation exercise.
This will include 48,000 km to cover carnivores, to be followed by covering 9,600 km of herbivore trails.
This once-in-a-four-year exercise will focus on ‘sign’ surveys for carnivores and herbivores inside Telangana’s forests. Once the data is crunched, it will provide information not just on presence and abundance of tigers and other wildlife but also on the state of of the forest in terms of vegetation, its density and canopy types, as well as signs of past forest fires.
The six-day exercise will be divided into two parts, — three days of carnivore trail walks, and three days of transect walks for observations on herbivore presence.
During the first three days, teams of forest staff will cover five km a day of an animal trail looking for signs left behind by tigers, leopards, and other carnivorous animals in the forests. During the second half, 2 km of transect — a path cut across forest — will be covered each day with staff noting down details of presence of herbivores, primarily various species of deer that along with wild boar, form bulk of the prey animals for carnivores such as tigers, leopards, and dholes or the Indian wild dogs.
Each day a different trail, or a transect will be covered. That will be a lot of walking and this will happen simultaneously in all the 3,200 ‘beats’ in every reserve forest and protected areas, a senior department official said.
On Thursday, as part of preparations for the coming round of All India Tiger Estimation, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (head of forest force) Dr C. Suvarna, addressing a meeting with forest and wildlife officials, where preparedness for the exercise was reviewed at the Forest Academy in Dullapally, said the exercise was the largest such undertaking across the country. This will provide a comprehensive picture of our forests, their current state, wildlife habitats and their possible numbers, she said.
All India Tiger Estimation - Counting wildlife
Six days in November
Telangana’s forests divided into 3,200 beats.
5 km of carnivore trails, 2 km of transect walks per day in each beat.
48,000 km of carnivore walks.
9,600 km of transect herbivore walks.
Data to be uploaded on M-STRiPES (Monitoring System for Tigers – Intensive Protection and Ecological Status) during walks
Survey will provide comprehensive information on the presence of tigers, leopards, deer and various other species such as sloth bear, wild dogs, monkeys among others.
Forest health, human disturbances are also to be recorded.