50 years of Venture Tiger: How are wild tigers counted?
How do tigers get counted? What transpires behind closed doors in forests? And how much information is required to estimate tigers in the wild?
Ankush Pandey
We will get a new count of how many tigers are currently in India this Sunday. State leader Narendra Modi will deliver the most recent figures of India's large feline populace as the nation celebrates 50 years of Undertaking Tiger on April 9. Since the beginning of a half-century-long conservation campaign throughout India, the tiger population has increased.
The ecosystem's top predator, tigers play a crucial part in nature's delicate balance. In 1973, India started Project Tiger to start a coordinated effort to save the big cat, which was on the verge of extinction at the time. Their numbers have increased over the past fifty years as a result of the campaign's concentrated efforts. As indicated by the 2018 tiger populace study - - the last such completed - - India had 2,461 individual tigers.
How are these figures tallied? When rangers and park staff are tasked with the difficult task of counting the big cats, what goes on behind the scenes in the forests? The way that science helps is as follows:
SCIENCE OF COUNTING TIGERS
It is not easy to count the number of tigers, and when the whole thing started in 1973, forest staff used glass and butter paper to track tiger pugmarks. Like human fingerprints, each tiger has a distinctive footprint that aids in tracking. Officers would follow the joint separates the foot and follow them on spread paper to draw and record the impression, with utilizing it to follow that specific tiger later on.
In any case, it is quite difficult. The process is complicated by the fact that the pugmarks change when a tiger is standing, resting, or running.
CAPTURE MARK RECAPTURE
The practice developed into a statistical counting technique over time. The capture-mark-and-recapture method was used by the forest staff to primarily estimate the population from a sample.
The basic concept, as stated by Northern Arizona University, is to capture a small number of tigers, leave a harmless mark on them, and then reintroduce them into the population. You catch another small group at a later time and note how many have a mark. You are less likely to recapture marked individuals in a large population than you are in a small population. This can be mathematically expressed.
COUNTING THROUGH CAMERA TRAPS
The camera trap method is used by tiger reserves and national parks to estimate the tiger population by taking pictures of the tigers along the parks' entire length. The technique of camera trapping involves taking pictures of individual tigers that can only be identified by the patterns of their stripes; Tigers, like pugmarks, have distinctive body stripes that aid in individual identification.
Estimates of the tiger population for each landscape are made by combining information on prey, habitat, and anthropogenic factors with information on individual tiger photo-captures.
The National Tiger Conservation Authority states that the camera traps are set up in places where the big cat is known to frequent, like animal trails, nullahs, riverbeds, and car tracks. In order to blend in with the surroundings, the cameras are positioned at knee height to block out the animal camouflage. To capture both sides of the tiger, the camera traps are placed in pairs.
ASSESSMENT COMPLETE
India is separated into five zones for the review: the Sundarbans, the Gangetic Plains, Central India and the Eastern Ghats, the Western Ghats, the North Eastern Hills, and the Brahmaputra Flood Plains In 141 locations, 26,838 camera traps were placed throughout the 381,400 square kilometers that were surveyed during the 2018 assessment.
Due to the fact that camera traps are only set up in protected areas, "the tiger numbers are significantly higher than what the reports indicate." With the rising quantities of the large feline, they in all actuality do branch out past the restrictions of public parks where we don't have camera traps," untamed life traditionalist Latika Nath told IndiaToday.in.
On April 9, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hold a massive event in Mysuru, Karnataka, to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Project Tiger and announce the results of the most recent assessment.
