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Ascertaining the trend of tiger population

By Our Staff Correspondent

NEW DELHI MAY 28. The Directorate of Project Tiger in the Ministry of Environment and Forests has introduced state-of-the art technology to develop a "Tiger Habitat and Population Evaluation System'' in the country to indicate the trend of tiger population in the country. The new initiative coincides with the completion of three decades of Project Tiger.

The new evaluation system will give an idea of how these populations are spaced, the areas and reasons behind the decrease and increase of tiger population. It will devise safe and specific monitoring and estimating system for obtaining reliable data from the field. Besides storing data, the system will help disseminate the census, habitat evaluation and monitoring techniques to field personnel through regional training workshops and manuals.

The methodology broadly evolves three layers of activities with the first tier involving mapping, data acquisition and Geographical Information System (GIS) modelling. The potential tiger habitats in the country would be mapped at a low resolution to identify conservation units at the landscape level and incorporate details of land pattern. At the second layer, for field data collection and validation, the actual field sampling sites would be based on the data obtained from the questionnaires. This information would be used for ascertaining the size of forested tracts, connectivity, tiger densities, prey availability, anthropogenic pressures and poaching threats.

In the third layer, the information developed would be maintained in an interactive usable format for field managers, decision and policy makers and scientists.

The "Tiger Habitat and Population Evaluation System'' would not only serve as a monitoring tool for the tiger but would also serve to monitor forests, their extents and threats. It would monitor the entire wilderness biodiversity versatile for use in evaluating the status and habitat of any endangered species.

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