Forest Department conducts first-ever wild boar census in Coimbatore

This involved forest personnel walking along the transect lines traversing all the 19 beats in the six ranges of Coimbatore Forest Division.

May 28, 2015 12:00 am | Updated 09:30 am IST - COIMBATORE:

Following complaints of farmers that wild boars were increasingly damaging crops, the Forest Department undertook the first-ever survey in Coimbatore district to ascertain their population.

Following complaints of farmers that wild boars were increasingly damaging crops, the Forest Department undertook the first-ever survey in Coimbatore district to ascertain their population.

The Forest Department has conducted an enumeration of the wild boar population in the district using scientific methods following complaints from farmers of an increase in its population and subsequent rise in crop damage.

“While an accurate count of wild boars is not possible, through this census we have found out the concentration of boars in each of the beats in Coimbatore. As many as 1,850 boars were spotted during this exercise,” District Forest Officer M. Senthil Kumar told The Hindu here on Wednesday.

He said that the survey was completed recently using the ‘abundance survey’ method that employed both ‘direct sightings’ and ‘indirect evidence collection.’

This involved forest personnel walking along the transect lines traversing all the 19 beats in the six ranges of Coimbatore Forest Division, which spans 69,000 hectares and shares borders with Tirupur, Erode and the Nilgiris besides Palakkad district of Kerala.

The Coimbatore district alone has a forest boundary of 260 km.

The indirect evidence collection involves tracking animal movement through signs such as droppings. Direct Sightings, as the name implies, involves visual confirmation.

They were both carried out separately and collated later.

Boars frequently cause a lot of damage to crops in areas such as Narasipuram in Booluvampatti Range, Solampalayam in P.N.Palayam Range, Thekkampatti and Kallar in Mettupalayam Range, the District Forest Officer said. In fact, hundreds of farmers objected to the rescue of wild boars that fell into an open well at Dhayanur village near Karamadai this January.

The purpose of the survey was to ascertain the extent of the population and take it to the notice of the State government to devise mitigation measures to provide relief for farmers.

Any mitigation measure required such a study to quantify the extent of the problem, he said.

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