Coimbatore: The forest department might soon start using the M-STrIPES (Monitoring System for Tigers - Intensive Protection and Ecological Status) app for wildlife census in the district’s forest beats. The application, launched by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), was earlier used in Anamalai Tiger Reserve and Mudumalai Tiger Reserve for tiger census.
On Wednesday, a senior biologist from Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) gave training at the district forest office to a group of foresters, beat guards and anti-poaching watchers on using the application. “The app was initially used only in tiger reserves. But now we have planned to use it in other forest beats too,” said senior biologist from MTR J Yogesh, who gave training to ground level forest staff members.
Yogesh said forest workers were asked to use the application as it would give them more information about an animal, such as the location where it was spotted using GPS.
While a wildlife census was conducted manually in Coimbatore two months ago, the next census will be carried out using the app, said Yogesh. This would also help in geo-tagging, he said.
The app would enable the forest staff to get extensive details such as the precise location of an animal, the angle in which it was spotted, number of young ones accompanying animals, nature of the terrain it was spotted in and around animal’s habitat, said Yogesh.
While the forest staff members from Madukkarai, Karamadai and Boluvampatti were trained on Wednesday, forest workers from the entire division would be trained by the next week, he said.
An official from the forest department said they had received a communication regarding using the app. The official said they would discuss on how to go about using the application and then would implement it.
