An exclusive photo album of dung piles of elephants is being prepared in the Palamu Tiger Reserve said sources. Alongside this photo album of dung plies will be the location mark like trees, rocks and other useful features to identify the marked dung pile of the elephants.
This photographing of dung pile is of dung decay method of estimating the number of elephants. Palamu tiger reserve has elephants in the range of 140 to 160 elephants. GPS co ordinates with latitude and longitude are recorded for evrty dung pile. Sources said at every 20 day interval 15 fresh dung piles of elephant is to be seen and marked under this dung decay method.
Sources said all marked dung piles are revisited where its status is recorded and if there is no residue left of the dung pile it is treated as ' Absent'.
Field director PTR MP Singh said this dung pile decay method is to ensure a near real estimation of elephants. He agreed that the prevalent practice was to count the elephants after its due sighting by the PTR personnel.but with this dung pile decay method the counting of elephant is believed to be as far near the actual one as one can imagine.
DFO buffer Mahaling said dung pile decay method decides the density of elephants per kilometer.
Sukumar (a wild life board member of the state of Karnataka) has his man Francis here in PTR who is on this mission of the dung pile decay estimation of elephant who told the Pioneer that male or female elephant if adult eases itself 16 to 18 times a day but it is the fresh dung pile that is to be marked every 20 days and this may go down to even first week of May when the entire recording of dung piles can be sampled and an analysis can be made with reference to its estimation here in this tiger reserve. Decay rate helps in the estimation of the elephants Francis reiterated. Marking of dung piles is avoided on forest roads, water holes and salt licks said Mahaling.