Tiger conservation to go hi-tech: TOI

Now, tiger conservation to go hi-tech ……….Neha Shukla | TNN

Lucknow: Tiger conservation is set to get a boost. The movement of the big cats anywhere in the country will now be monitored using hi-tech software.

All 28 tiger reserves in the country will be set in a loop through GIS-based software and camera trap techniques. This software will help in designing a proper mechanism to save the tigers inside and outside reserve areas.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), a statutory body under the ministry of environment and forests, has decided to outsource the job of designing a special software to intensively monitor source populations of tigers in areas that have a substantial number of wild cats.

The source populations are the set of tigers present in the core areas of the forest. These will be thoroughly observed for their behaviour, threats, challenges and ecology. This will help in knowing the tigers better and what is affecting them because this population reflects the health of the forest area, said an NTCA member.

The fact that the February 2008 census projected just 1,400 tigers has forced conservationists to study the root cause of the dwindling populations in almost all reserves. The recommendations towards the same were made by the census conducting body Wildlife Institute of India (WII) in the report submitted with the Project Tiger. The conservationists are turning to the source populations for basic facts on the big cats like their dispersing area, birth and survival rate, the condition of their habitat and shrinking prey base.

Tiger census earlier was more or less like a ritual, very much like a human census after specific time periods but now it will be a comprehensive monitoring and there will be a change in census procedure, said Qamar Qureshi, a WII scientist who was part of the census team at Dudhwa reserve.

The hi-tech conservation efforts will also involve a programme to monitor tiger populations through mark-recapture by camera traps. Efforts will also be directed towards prey evaluation by distant sampling and integration of data from GPS and telemetry relating to tiger ecology. The agency will also have to develop a programme to integrate spatial and temporal field data in a site-specific GIS system so that it can be statistically analysed.

Ten arrested for electrocuting tiger

New Delhi: Ten villagers have been arrested for allegedly electrocuting an adult male tiger in MPs Kanha tiger reserve.

They are in judicial custody as the offence is non-bailable. They had laid electric wires on the buffer area of the park to kill a sambhar to eating it, said R P Singh, field director of Kanha sanctuary. The tigers carcass was found in Sautiya village on the periphery of the reserves buffer area on November 2. Initially we thought the villagers had poisoned it to take revenge for killing cattle, Singh said. But investigations revealed that the villagers had planned to electrocute a sambhar. AGENCIES

The National Tiger Conservation Authority plans to keep track of all large groups of tigers in India

First, trap cameras will be extensively used to form an idea of the core groups of tigers in all large forests

All 28 tiger reserves in India will be linked via a GIS-based software to track the tigers and exchange information

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