From December 5, the country will begin the National Tiger Survey in all tiger-inhabiting national parks and surrounding forests across the country.
The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) is leading the census, which will begin in Chitwan National Park (CNP). On December 5, Minister for Forest and Environment Ramsahay Prasad Yadav will inaugurate the National Survey at CNP’s Sauraha.
All of the tiger-inhabiting national parks are separated into three groups: Chitwan and Parsa and their surrounding forest areas, Banke and Bardiya and their adjacent forest areas, and Shuklaphanta and the adjoining Laljhadi and their surrounding forest areas.
Five national parks and surrounding forest regions are home to tigers. CNP, Bardiya National Park (BNP), Parsa National Park (PNP), Shuklaphanta National Park (SNP), and Banke National Park (BaNP), as well as the surrounding forest regions, are among them.
Haribhadra Acharya, CNP’s Chief Conservation Officer, stated that the essential human resources have been prepared for the census. The Chitwan-Parsa complex has been divided into three blocks, each of which has been divided into 942 two-by-two-kilometer grids.
The CNP will be equipped with 360 pairs of cameras. Two automatic cameras will be installed on trees, trunks, and poles at a height of three to six feet from the ground on the grids of each block. For 15 days and nights, these cameras are kept in one location.
The cameras will be removed after 15 days and relocated to another block, he said. The Chitwan-Parsa complex will be surveyed by about 100 enumerators.
Bishnu Prasad Shrestha, BNP’s Chief Conservation Officer, said the park’s tigers were counted in four blocks, with distinct blocks for the Khata biological corridor and other community forest areas in Banke and Bardiya. In BNP, the count will begin in the second week of December.
According to him, a block is being built in the Chure area this time because the number of tigers in the area has increased.
He stated that 300 pairs of cameras will be installed in a two-by-two kilometer space. The cameras will be left there for 15 to 21 days, after which the number of individual tigers will be calculated based on the photos taken in the field. “The result will take two to three months to be finalized,” Shrestha added.
“We’ll utilize the stripes to identify particular tigers because every tiger has different stripes,” he explained. “We have issues in BNP since there could be a significant risk in the core and Babai regions, but security troops have been mobilized in those locations,” he said.
Around 100 people will be involved in the counting, including Armed Police Forces, Police Personnel, Park Staff, Forest Staff, Citizen Scientists, Nature Guides, and WWF Representatives, he said.
“We expect that the number of tigers will grow in comparison to the last count and that this will contribute to meeting the worldwide goal of doubling the tiger population by 2022,” Shrestha added.
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