Post News Network
Bhubaneswar: Following a disagreement between the state government and the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) over a recent census data on Simlipal Tiger Reserve, the state government decided to conduct a fresh census beginning April 17 to establish the exact number of big cats there.
“We had conducted tiger census in all the sanctuaries in the state. But as the NTCA’s report on the number of tigers in Similipal National Park in Mayurbhanj district differs from ours, we have decided conduct a fresh tiger census to crosscheck the numbers,” principal chief conservator of forests (PCCF) Sidhant Das said here Monday.
To get correct information on the number of tigers in the park, the department would use CCTV camera trapping method by installing 500 CCTV cameras in the core area of the park, Das added.
“The census work will continue till April 30 after which we will compare the fresh data with that of the earlier one in which we had adopted statistical method and pug mark method,” he said.
Notably, the national tiger estimation report recently published by Ministry of Environment and Forests (MoEF) showed the state is presently having only 28 tigers as compared to 32 in 2010 and 45 in 2006. In the last census, the tiger population in Similipal was recorded as 23 while it was eight in Satkosia.
But, the state government did not accept the report and conducted a fresh tiger census in 46 wildlife divisions in the state except Similipal National Park from February 5 to 10 this year, in which it had used about 20,000 pug impression pads (PIPs) and 800 CCTV cameras.