Biggest tiger census gets underway in India

Around 39 tigers have been poached in India so far this year — the highest since 2005. Two de-skinned tigers were found earlier this week near Jim Corbett National Park. Chetan Chauhan reports.

Updated on: Dec 22, 2013, 24:55:35 IST

Hindustan Times | By Chetan Chauhan, New Delhi

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The world’s biggest exercise to count the number of tigers left in India started this week even as 2013 turned out to be a nightmare year for the big cats.

Around 39 tigers have been poached in India so far this year — the highest since 2005.

Two de-skinned tigers were found earlier this week near Jim Corbett National Park.

The year also saw the environment ministry clearing projects in vital tiger corridors in central India, which endanger their free movement from one wildlife zone to another.

Though states estimate tiger population within the boundaries of a reserve every year, this is a National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) survey where the whole habitat is surveyed. The exercise has been split into four phases across five major landscapes spanning 5,00,000 sq km of forests that house more than 90% of the country’s tigers. Over 2,000 experts will work with forest officials to count the tigers.

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The year-long exercise will be the most “intensive” ever with a one kilometer search for the big cats for every square kilometer of the forest surveyed, said SP Yadav, NTCA’s deputy inspector general.

In 2010 census, India was home to 1,706 tigers or half the world’s tiger population.

Every tiger spotted in the 2013-2014 census will have to pass through three tests including camera trap and DNA testing of tiger scat to minimise duplicate counting.

The new population estimate will also help the NTCA to expand its digital database of tigers and make a first comparative analysis on individual tigers. "Every tiger caught on camera will be given a unique identification number based on their stripe patterns using computer software and a database maintained for the entire country," Yadav said, adding that they already have picture database of 80% of tigers living inside 42 reserves.

HT PHOTO : Aditya 'Dicky' Singh

But the tiger estimation methodology adopted by the NTCA has some critics. K Ullas Karanth, director of Bangalore-based Wildlife Conservation Society, said the methodology may not give the best results. “The NTCA has not updated the basic methodology. But the one positive is introduction that it allows state governments to choose from a basket of protocols for final estimation,” he told HT.

NTCA, however, refuted his contention and said no other wildlife survey at this scale enjoys better tools or techniques. “Latest tools available have been provided,” a NTCA official said.

The NCTA survey will provide a holistic overview of the wildlife population in the landscapes being surveyed and provide information on leopards, dhole, bears and elephants.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Chetan Chauhan
Chetan Chauhan is the National Affairs Editor looking into all aspects of news and features from across India. A Chevening scholar with over three decades of experience in reporting and news management, Chetan has extensively covered all important aspects of the social sector, political economy, environment and climate change nationally and internationally. He did a journalism course at the Reuters Institute of Journalism in Oxford and Digital Media training at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He started as a reporter with The Statesman in 1996 and joined the Hindustan Times in 2000 in the metro bureau covering environment, crime and Delhi politics. He covered hot local news, from the Jessica Lal murder case to the rebellion of Delhi Congress MLAs against then Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, to the replacement of toxic vehicle fuel with cleaner compressed natural gas (CNG) in the national capital. Some of his stories on air pollution became part of the Supreme Court’s landmark MC Mehta versus Government of India case in the National Capital Region (NCR), forcing the government to take corrective measures. As part of the national political bureau since 2004, he covered important central sectors such as environment, education, social justice, labour, rural development, water resources, renewable energy, agriculture, broadcasting and the Planning Commission for more than a decade producing several exclusive and investigative breaking stories. His specialisation is the environment, having covered at least a dozen United Nations global conferences on climate change, biodiversity and wildlife including climate summits in Paris, Copenhagen and Bali. He also covered India’s two five-year plans ---11th and 12th and reported on drafting and execution of right based laws such as Right to Education, Right to Information and rural job guarantee law, MG-NREGA, now being introduced in new format as VG-RAM-G Act. He has in-depth knowledge of social sector issues. He was one of the first to report on tigers vanishing from Sariska and Panna wildlife reserves in 2004 and 2008, respectively, leading to the setting up of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and the introduction of stringent penal provisions for poaching. He has written extensively on the rising human-animal conflict in India and the degradation of India’s biodiversity hotspots because of mining and other activities. Since 2004, Chetan has covered Parliament comprehensively and participated in training on the nuanced coverage of Parliament proceedings. He has travelled extensively across India to cover national and provincial elections since 1998, especially in the Hindi heartland states, considered India’s road to power. He writes a regular column for Hindustan Times, Ecostani, on important national politics, economy, Himalayan ecology and environmental issues. His other responsibilities include providing inputs for edits and edit page articles for the publication, apart from managing news flow from across India.Read More

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