The State forest department has extended the tiger census that began across the hill State from February 10, by two days as the adverse weather conditions in different parts of Uttarakhand last weekend badly hit the aforesaid drive.
Now the wildlife survey, that was to be concluded on February 17, would continue till Wednesday. A brief extension of two days has been given to the ongoing tiger census drive as adverse weather conditions coupled with occasional rainfall caused a lot disturbances in carrying out it last weekend, said the officials concerned.
It is a manual survey to trace the presence of tigers through their pugmarks and direct and indirect sightings. But the pugmarks had been washed away by the rain last weekend, said RC Kandpal, SDO, Terai-central forest division, while talking to The Pioneer.
The weather conditions have now shown improvement. So, the ongoing tiger census would continue till Wednesday, he added. It should be noted that after completion of the manual tiger census, state of the art cameras would be placed in different forest locations which were identified during the census as the tiger dominated areas.
As the officials informed, the State forest department may also tie up with some other agencies having expertise in wildlife for carrying out the tiger census in second phase with cameras. It may be recalled that in a bid to make this weeklong tiger census campaign error free, the State forest department also conducted training programmes for the officials concerned.
It is worth mention here that among other zones of the Himalayan State, the Terai landscape is considered a critical tiger habitat. Its rich flora and fauna has only made this Terai landscape a favourable destination for the big cat in the Himalayan State.