BHUBANESWAR/ BARIPADA: Odisha on Saturday launched the tiger count exercise for the 6th All India Tiger Estimate (AITE) 2026 to determine the current population and distribution of big cats in the landscape.
Forest officials informed that the comprehensive enumeration exercise rolled out in Similipal Tiger Reserve (STR) initially will cover both core and buffer zones of the habitat.
State nodal officer for AITE-2026, Prakash Chand Gogineni said the exercise, to be carried out in phases till June, will cover beats across all divisions. However, focus will be more on protected areas, especially the sanctuaries and the tiger reserves.
The phase-I exercise will run for six to eight days to record evidence of big cats, herbivores and other carnivores. Line transect method will be used for the purpose. Analysis of data collected during the fieldwork will be done in the phase-II, while camera trap exercise will be launched in the third phase.
While the state doesn’t have much role in phase-II, Gogineni said camera traps in the third phase will be installed in forests from December. “Around 3,500 to 4,000 camera traps will be used across all the protected areas including Similipal, Satkosia and Debrigarh for the purpose. The exercise will be wrapped up in the state by June 2026,” Gogineni said.
Deputy director of Similipal South Samrat Gouda said both core and buffer area of Similipal will be included in the enumeration exercise.
“The extensive camera trapping exercise will be carried out across 1,321 grids in Similipal for which around 1,500 camera traps will be deployed in two cycles of 25 days each,” he said.
Around 103 teams have been deployed across 103 beat in the south division to record the carnivores occupancy and ungulates density in the landscape as per the NTCA protocol. While about 1,200 sq km area of Similipal used to be covered in the tiger count exercise previously, this time it would expand to more than 2,500 sq km area, he said.
Apart from Similipal, around 400 camera traps will be used by the Satkosia and Mahanadi wildlife divisions for the tiger census in Satkosia tiger reserve.
The previous AITE 2022 had pegged the tiger population of the state at 20, prompting the Odisha government to launch its own tiger estimate which put the big cat count of the state at 30.