BHUBANESWAR : The Forest department has stepped up preparations for the ensuing All India Tiger Estimation (AITE) 2026, which is expected to kick off in the post-monsoon season across major landscapes of the state.
A training programme for divisional forest officers in this regard was held at Similipal Tiger Reserve, state’s biggest big cat habitat, recently.
Experts and members from the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) gave the officers lessons on field exercises, tracking and scientific data collection on the big cats. These divisional forest officials will now impart training at the field level across all forest and wildlife divisions of Baripada circle, said RCCF-cum-field director of STR Prakash Chand Gogineni.
According to forest officials, phase one of the tiger estimation exercise, carried out by the the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in collaboration with WII and state forest departments across the country every four years, will commence in the post-monsoon season towards October this year and include carnivore sign surveys and herbivore line transects among other methods for monitoring of prey and predator movement.
The phase two exercise will include habitat quality assessment through remote sensing. Camera traps will be used in the third phase towards December-January across different divisions as a part of it.
The AITE 2022 had suggested a drop in Odisha’s tiger count - from 28 in 2018 to 20 in 2022. It had traced 16 of these 20 tigers in Similipal Tiger Reserve. The exercise prompted the state government to launch its own tiger estimation exercise - All Odisha Tiger Estimation (AOTE) 2023-24 - last year that pegged the state’s big cat number at 30 including 27 in Similipal landscape.