Pre-monsoon tiger census begins in Mudumalai reserve

Udhagamandalam: A six-day pre-monsoon tiger census began in the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) in the Nilgiris on Tuesday. A total of 192 forest department staff will conduct the census till May 26.
Unlike in the past, this year no volunteers or NGOs are involved in the census, field director of MTR K K Kaushal said. “The census will also involve accounting the prey base and vegetation in the core area as well as buffer zone of MTR. While 37 transact-lines have been developed to conduct the census in the core area, 27 lines are in the buffer zone of the reserve. Each line will be handled by three forest staff,” the official said.
Range officers of the tiger reserve will be monitoring the census operation in their respective ranges. “After the census, the collected data will be compiled and cross checked before it is sent to the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA),” Kaushal said.
Meanwhile, the forest officials who are involved in the census were trained at Theppakadu in MTR on Monday.
The tiger census across reserves in India is conducted twice a year — pre-monsoon and post-monsoon.
As per the NTCA data in 2014, the total number of tigers in Tamil Nadu was 226. The latest record shows that MTR has 59. The 2012 census revealed that MTR was home for 67 tigers, which is considered as high density.
In 100 sqkm, at least 10-11 tigers could survive given the minimum area for each. Sometimes, tigers move from one reserve to another.