Nagarahole Tiger Reserve, one of the key protected tiger habitats in the country, is bracing up for camera-trapping of tigers.
About 200 pairs of camera traps will be installed starting next week to capture the movement of tigers. In Bandipur Tiger Reserve, camera-trapping of tigers had been completed in seven ranges using 100 pairs of camera traps and the process is set to commence in three more ranges this month.
R. Gokul, director, Nagarahole Tiger Reserve, told The Hindu that the installation of infrared camera traps is expected to begin from December 15 as basic work such as identification of locations (based on previous tiger sightings) had been completed.
The camera traps, each costing around Rs. 20,000, have been funded through the Nagarahole Tiger Conservation Foundation, which has the support of some corporate entities interested in wildlife conservation. About Rs. 82 lakh had been funded for installing the traps in Nagarahole, Mr. Gokul said.
The reserve had 90 pairs of camera traps and an additional 200 pairs have been procured to capture the movements of tigers, he informed.
Mr. Gokul said tiger photos would be retrieved once in three days and stored for study. “Camera-trapping is an important method of identifying individual tigers as their stripes differ from one another’s,” he said.
Meanwhile, work on installing camera traps in Omkara, Yediyala, and A.M. Gudi ranges in Bandipur Tiger Reserve is nearing completion. The same traps would be shifted to the two remaining ranges after recording for 45 days, according to Bandipur Tiger Reserve director H.C. Kantharaju.
He said the line transect method of counting tigers had been done using the services of wildlife enthusiasts who were roped in as volunteers in the reserve in December last year. The samples of tiger scat, which is another technique for surveying tiger population, had been collected and send to the Wildlife Institute of India for examination, he said.
Camera-trapping is the last in the series of the ongoing census to calculate the number of tigers. The data collected using different methods would be analysed before the results are announced, hopefully by February, Mr. Kantharaju said.
