BHUBANESWAR: The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), which has been upgrading monitoring mechanism for the large cats, brought in field officials and technical staff of 11 tiger reserves (TRs) of the country to Baripada to introduce them to Monitoring System for Tiger-Intensive Protection and Ecological Status, known as M-STrIPES.
The android-based monitoring software M-STrIPES will be used across all the TRs of the country. Its pilot use has already been completed. At Similipal, its implementation could start from April.
The national level five-day training workshop on M-STrIPES was inaugurated by Chief Wildlife Warden Sidhhant Das in presence of IG (Forests) of NTCA's Nagpur Region Debabrata Swain.
About 40 field and technical officials from Manas, Kajiranga, Nameri (Assam), Pakke, Namdapha (Arunachal Pradesh), Dampa (Mizoram), Palamau (Jharkhand), Udanti Sitanadi (Chhattisharh), Buxa (West Bengal) and Similipal and Satkosia (Odisha) TRs are taking part in the event where Prof YV Jhala of Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and his team of research scholars will give them hands-on training on use of M-STrIPEs as well as generation of data.
The TR representatives will also conduct field trials of the software from February 8 to 10 in Similipal TR.
Jhalla, a Principal Scientist with WII, said increase in tiger population in the country was primarily due to protection measures initiated by the Government.
The WII scientists also spoke about tiger conservation issues and challenges and how M-STrIPES could help scientific management of the large cats.
Field Director of Similipal HK Bisht, DFOs of Baripada, Karanjia, Rairangpur divisions and Deputy Director of Similipal Tiger Reserve Ajit Satpathy were present at the training workshop which was hosted by the core and buffer divisions of STR.