Lakhimpur Kheri (Uttar Pradesh), Dec 31 : The census of tigers and other wild animals through camera traps at six places in Kishanpur wildlife sanctuary, Pilibhit tiger reserve, Bhira and Mailani ranges of north Kheri forest division and Gola and Mohammadi ranges of south Kheri forest division will begin from Saturday.
These forest areas constitute the first block of Dudhwa Tiger Reserve (DTR) and Pilibhit Tiger Reserve (PTR) where the work is likely to conclude by the end of January.
According to field director, DTR, Sanjay Kumar Pathak, the entire tiger movement area is about 2,931 square kilometres, comprising Dudhwa National Park (DNP), Kishanpur wildlife sanctuary (KWS), Katarniaghat wildlife sanctuary (KGS), buffer zone and forest ranges of north and the south Kheri forest divisions.
It has been divided into two blocks for the convenience of staff deployment, camera installation, tracking and survey work, keeping in mind the inter-connectivity of the forest areas, said Pathak.
He said image capturing in the second block, comprising Dudhwa National Park, adjoining Katarniaghat, remaining buffer zones of north Kheri, DNP and Katarniaghat, was likely to start from the first week of February.
Sanjay Kumar Pathak, who is coordinating the tiger estimation work in all forest divisions of Uttar Pradesh, said, “Around 1,300 specially designed night-vision enabled infrared cameras would be used to capture images of tigers and other wild animals.
Among these, 1,154 cameras would be installed in the first block, where estimation work is set to start from January 1, he added.
Pathak said that after image capturing work in the first block was over and the data was imported to the database according to NTCA guidelines, to be forwarded to the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) for further analysis, the same cameras would be used in the other block.
The major exercise — enumeration work of tigers and other carnivores and herbivores which has found place in Guinness Book of World Records — is a part of tiger estimation work to assess the number of tigers, other carnivores, ungulates and wild elephants in the reserved forest areas of Kheri, Pilibhit and Bahraich districts.
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