Stage set for tiger census at Dudhwa

LAKHIMPUR KHERI : A two-month tiger census will begin soon at the Dudhwa National Park, the Kishanpur Sanctuary and the Katarniaghat Wildlife Sanctuary, all of which are part of the Dudhwa Tiger Reserve (DTR) area.

“The (biennial) exercise will start within a couple of days,” said Mahavir Kaujlagi, deputy director of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve.

“Preliminary exercises, including requisition of infrared night vision cameras and training of field staff, have been completed,” he said.

Kaujlagi said, “Areas having the maximum tiger movement in the core and buffer zones of DTR have been identified.”

“Around 450 cameras will capture the images of tigers,” he added.

“These night vision enabled cameras, which are activated on detecting any movement in their focal area, will capture the images of the tigers as and when they face the lens,” he said.

“The data of these images will be collected from the cameras for further analysis of stripes on the tigers to derive their number,” he added.

“Each tiger has a distinct stripe pattern which is the basis of deciding their numbers,” he explained.

The official also said teams of the Dudhwa field staff had collected pugmarks to identify the areas with frequent tiger movement.

The camera trap method is considered the most reliable and scientific method to ascertain the number of tigers in an area. In the pugmark method, overlapping of the same tiger cannot be ruled out, according to wildlife experts.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is the empowered authority to disclose the tiger population in a reserve.

Dudhwa National Park and Kishanpur Sanctuary have a healthy population of tigers, according to the tiger census results of 2015.

Kishanpur Sanctuary has 36, Dudhwa National Park 28 and Katarniaghat Sanctuary two dozen tigers, sources said.