Rajahmundry: Forest authorities will be undertaking a census of the tiger population in the state from the end of November onwards. The census is taken annually but a report of the census is published every four years. According to the last census, there were 46 adult Royal Bengal Tigers along with six cubs in the state. But authorities are expecting the number of tigers to have crossed 50 in the upcoming census. Cubs are not counted in the survey till they are two years old.
The forest authorities will be scouting 3,727 sq km area of East and West Godavari and Krishna districts and covering forests of Giddaluru, Nandyal, Atmakur, Markapur, Kadapa, Proddatur and the Papikonda National Park. The survey is mainly dependent upon scientific evidence of the presence of tigers in the forest area. The evidence is based on footage captured by the cameras installed at strategic locations. Over 600 camera traps are already in place and a few more are to be installed thereby covering the entire stretch of forest area.
The cameras are fixed to the trunks of trees that are near the water bodies, with the belief that the animals will inevitably come to the water bodies to drink water. A pair of cameras is installed in every four sq km of the forest and whenever any animal or tiger enters the area, the cameras automatically switch on and the images captured. Says a forest official, “Every tiger has a unique pattern of stripes. So we compare the two images and confirm the presence of a tiger by noting its specific pattern of stripes. This way we avoid duplication while counting the tiger population.”
The forest authorities have a well-equipped bio-lab where they process the data collected from the cameras with the help of a specially designed software application and confirm the presence of tigers scientifically. Also by using Global Positioning System, they confirm their location with geo-coordinates like latitude and longitude. Once a tiger is sighted in an area, it is easy to confirm the number in his family. As each tiger fixes his own territory and stays there with his family, he will not move elsewhere unless and until the circumstances warrant otherwise.
Senior forest officers will be training the field staff to go ahead with the tiger census which will begin from the end of November and will continue up to June, 2018. As the tiger census is an annual ritual, the field staff will undergo a refresher training session on how to install camera traps, retrieve recorded data and process it to come up with the final number of tigers in a given area.
Atmakur Divisional Forest Officer C. Selvam said, “We are going to start tiger census in the state from November end and complete the exercise by June. Only then will we be able to get the final number of tigers present in the state. We are going to rely upon scientific evidence only”
