IDUKKI: The Marayoor sandalwood forest and the Chinnar wildlife sanctuary are set to count the population of big cats inhabiting the wilderness, as part of the All India Tiger Estimation (AITE) from February 2 to 9.The exercise is being held amid expectations the new data, to be released in January 2019, will show a rise in the tiger population.
AITE is a pan India exercise conducted every four years at the initiative of the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) to assess the status of wild tigers, co-predators, prey species, and their habitats.Assistant wildlife warden at Chinnar sanctuary P M Prabhu said the training of the staff, which counts the number of tigers inside and outside the reserves, has been completed.
“In the 2006 and 2010 AITE, the state’s forests were divided into four landscapes for assessment. This time, they have been divided into five landscapes: Wayanad, Parambikulam, Nilambur, Periyar and Agasthyamala. The landscapes have been further divided into39 divisions, and the divisions segregated into 696 blocks,” Prabhu said
“Each block, comprising about 20 sq km, will be covered by three staffers headed by a section forest officer. The Periyar Tiger Reserve has the highest number of blocks, 59,” he said.
The 2014 National Tiger Census had pegged the population of big cats at 2,226, up from 1,706 in 2010. With 406 tigers, Karnataka had the highest population of tigers, followed by Uttarakhand with 340 tigers. Madhya Pradesh and Tamil Nadu had 308 and 229 tigers, respectively.In Kerala, the number of tigers in 2014 was 136. This time, the Forest Department is hopeful the number will be higher.