BHUBANESWAR: Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) now has a quadcopter drone for surveillance as well as rescue and rehabilitation of the displaced wildlife.
The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), which is collaborating with the Forest department, provided the unmanned aerial vehicle at STR on Friday. The Trust, working through its Rapid Action Projects (RAP) division, has been conducting programmes to train the forest field staff to handle emergency situations related to displaced wildlife.
The quadcopter is a first for the tiger reserve. STR Field Director H K Bisht said the UAV would come in handy for conservation work undertaken in the tiger reserve.
Debobroto Sircar, Project Lead of WTI’s Wild Aid, said STR’s surveillance capabilities will improve manifold with the device. The Trust’s State Facilitator Rudra Mahapatra will train the field staff on usage of the drone.
A series of workshops on rescue and rehabilitation of displaced wildlife has been held by WTI at Baripada (Core), Rairangpur, Karanjia and Balasore Wildlife divisions to identify as well as constitute circle-level teams. The identified candidates will get advanced training on handling emergencies related to displaced wildlife.
Bisht said the training addresses issues related to wildlife emergencies. Since incidences of human-wildlife conflict are bound to rise, such trainings would be invaluable.