(IN): Faulty tiger census under scanner

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*Faulty tiger census under scanner*

 

Sampad Mahapatra

Wednesday, November 14, 2007 (Bhubaneswar)

India's fourth largest tiger reserve Simlipal in Orissa may just turn out to

be another Sariska where the entire tiger population disappeared.

 

But wildlife officials refuse to accept the fact that the numbers were

fudged using faulty census methods.

 

NDTV brings you an on-the-ground report on faulty tiger census.

 

In 2005 the official census pegged the tiger population at 101 in Orissa's

Simlipal - India's fourth largest tiger reserve.

 

But 2005 was also the year of the Sariska scandal. The entire tiger

population of the sanctuary in Rajasthan had disappeared.

 

So in 2006 a national team visited Simplipal for a more rigorous census.

 

And here was the shocker!

 

The team found pugmarks and scat evidence of less than 12 tigers and could

not physically spot any.

 

Again, early 2007 a team from the Wildlife Institute of India carried out a

comprehensive study by using the more scientific Camera Trap Method.

 

Their census too showed the number of Simlipal tigers to be less than 30

about 70 per cent less than the official figure of 101.

 

''I don't understand why the tigers in Simlipal are supposed to be invisible

because no one ever sees them. There is definitely no sign of any good

number of tigers in Simlipal because there are so many other corollary

evidence that the tigers are very less in number,'' said Biswajit Mohanty

Secretary, Wildlife Society of Orissa.

 

Any doubt that the official figures may have been grossly inflated have been

shot down with contempt by forest officials.

 

*Inadequate method*

 

Even the most recent finding of the Wildlife Institute of India insist the

Camera Trap Method used in its survey is inadequate and the Pugmark Tracing

Method is still the most accurate.

 

''The whole country was adopting a particular method which used to be called

the Pugmark Tracing Method and then figures were consistent also year after

year. But now, for good or bad, this method has now been replaced a new

method.

 

''What we now find is that the Wildlife Institute, which is supposed to be

publishing the results, has come out with some kind of figures of tiger

numbers in different terrains. That does not seem to be acceptable,'' said

Suresh C Mohanty, Chief Wildlife Warden, Orissa.

 

The Pugmark Tracing Method for tiger census was first tried in Palamau

forests way back in 1932.

 

This was refined and institutionalised by Saroj Choudhury, a former field

director of Orissa's Similipal Tiger Reserve in 1970 and was adopted across

tiger territories in the country in 1972.

 

For decades it was considered not only authentic but sacrosanct. Till the

follies surfaced.

 

We have lost over 800 tigers to poaching since 1998. But many more it seems

to fudging.

 

The sooner the government accepts the heavy decline in the tiger count the

easier will it be to prevent Simlipals from becoming Sariskas.

 

 

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