Three-phase tiger census begins in MP

Bhopal : November 18th, 2009 - The Forest Department of Madhya Pradesh began a 3-phase assessment exercise for tigers.

This will go on until December 21stThe first phase will see wildlife specialists (employees), conduct field exercises to gather evidence that tigers are present in the forest reserves.Theyll use different parameters for each state.

Second phase involves the use of Geographic Information System (GIS) and third phase takes place in the lab.Rajnish Singh from Bhopals senior division wildlife officer stated that there are four types of exercise for tigers census.Two are conducted in the field, and three are at the laboratory.

The third is based upon evidence collected during the field exercise.Singh explained to IANS that while people commonly refer to this as census or the counting tigers it actually is an "estimation exercise" which takes place after four years in India.

First phase: November 17-25, second phase: December 1-13.Third phase: December 14-21.Centre to receive the final estimates exercise reports.

Singh stated that over 50 parameters are used in the estimation, such as human interference, geographic condition, footfalls and water resources.Singh replied to questions regarding the accuracy of this exercise that indicates the number of tigers in a specific tiger reserve.

Madhya Pradesh is known for being the "hub of tigers" and has suffered 36 losses in 2021.This was more than twice as many as Karnataka which only lost 15.An increasing number of deaths of Tigers in all tiger reserves has raised concerns about the MP status as a "tiger state", which was won in 2018 against Karnataka.It also raises alarm that more protection measures should be taken.

Madhya Pradesh was awarded the title of tiger country in 2018 All India Tiger Estimated report 2018.This distinction is due to a mere difference of two tigers: 526 vs.524 for Karnataka.Between 2012 and 2019, MP lost more than 200 tigers (36 to November 13, 2021), and then 141 in Maharashtra, and 123 respectively in Karnataka.pd/dpb/skp #tiger #census #begins.