The tiger census in four southern States of Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh will be started from October. A top Karnataka forest official told The Pioneer that the census will be conducted till December as greenery across the forest was conducive to take the census.Tiger census is done in five stages.
In the first stage, footprints, hoot marks and dropping of big cats are collected. In the second stage, biologists use camera trapping to record density of prey and predators. While in the third stage, cross verification and data entry are done. Data analysis and preparation of report are taken up in the fourth stage. And finally, the data would be submitted to the Union Government by December 2014. The tiger census is conducted once in four years across the country. The forest official said that five to six personnel from each division of tiger reserves will be selected for training at Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, which starts from the second week of October.
In Karnataka, the census will be done in Bandipur Tiger Reserve, Nagarahole Tiger Reserve, Bhadra Tiger Reserve, Anshi-Dandeli Tiger Reserve, BRHills and Kudremukh Tiger Reserve. The forest department will also involve activists, NGOs and wildlife enthusiasts in the census.
In the last census, Karnataka had displaced Madhya Pradesh as the State with the largest number of tigers.
Karnataka has nearly 300 big cats in the wild, taking on Madhya Pradesh (257), which topped the list in the last census. The third largest tiger population in the country is in Uttarakhand (227). Nearly 12,000 sq km of land was covered during the tiger census in Karnataka.