The third Tiger Census will commence in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala from Monday. According to forest department sources, 800 volunteers have enrolled in the State to conduct eight-day long census in the protected forest areas to count the big cats in the wild.
The tiger census which is conducted once in four years, would help forest department, activists, researchers and wildlife enthusiasts to conserve endangered Indian Tigers. This exercise one of the biggest in the world in the wild is seen as critical to conserve big cats in the wild. Karnataka has nine national parks and five tiger reserves with more than 300 tigers. The national parks and tiger reserves shares border with Kerala and Tamil Nadu and the coordinated census in all the three States is expected to give accurate tiger number to augment conservation.
According to previous tiger census in Karnataka, the State has a population of around 300-320 tigers, highest in the country in an area of 6000 sq kms of forests. But researchers are worried over increased man-animal conflict and poaching of tigers. Many poaching incidents have been reported in wildlife areas such as Pushpagiri, Brahmagiri, Bandipur, Nagarhole and Kudremukh. The high drama over a recent incident of a tiger killing three persons in the fringes of Bandipur forest has made the forest department to look into new strategies over conservation.
According to Praveen Bhargav, of Wildlife First, the forest department must resolve problems in the core areas to protect tigers. He said, “It is important that we add newer areas to have more number of tigers, besides solving the problems in the existing protected areas. The tiger reserves often face the threat of poaching and eternal vigil is the only key to successful conservation. If at any point the vigil is dropped, we risk losing animals.”
The Forest Department is also taking the help of Anti-Naxal Force (ANF) during the upcoming tiger census in Chikmagalur district and some parts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts, to provide security to enumerators of the tiger census.
The census of other animals like leopard and wild dogs would also be conducted along with it. The National Tiger Conservation Authority is the coordinating agency of this elaborate census — for which training to the senior level officials were held at different tiger reserves in the country. First phase of census will cover 19 habitats of tigers in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu. The National Tiger Conservation Authority is the coordinating agency of this elaborate.