Reserves to conduct annual tiger monitoring,using camera traps

The MoEF calls this Phase IV of its tiger monitoring programme. “This will initiate intensive,annual monitoring of tigers at the tiger reserve level,across 41 protected areas in the country,commencing from November 2011,” a statement from the ministry says. “This marks an important milestone in our comprehensive tiger conservation strategy. Annual monitoring at the tiger reserve level will allow us to get regular updates on the number and health of tiger populations across the country,and will strengthen our conservation efforts,” Ramesh said. Until now,the monitoring was done over a four-year cycle.

The tiger monitoring protocol will use camera traps,at a density of 25 double-sided cameras per 100 sq km,and a minimum trapping effort of 1000 trap nights per 100 sq km. This will provide a yearly indication of the status of critical tiger populations,and will be critical to conservation of tiger populations.

The monitoring of the prey population will be conducted simultaneously. In addition to phase IV monitoring,the country-level estimation will continue to be done every four years. Earlier,phase I dealt with field data collection at the beat-level,by trained personnel and using a standardised protocol; phase II was about analysis of habitat status of tiger forests using satellite data and phase III was about camera trapping to identify individual tigers from their unique stripe patterns. This information was used to estimate tiger numbers in sampled sites.The 2010 National Tiger Assessment estimated that there are 1,706 tigers (range between 1,571 and 1,875) in the country.