The first phase of the tiger census work being carried out by the Uttarakhand forest department in the Corbett and Rajaji tiger reserves and the adjoining areas of the two parks has been completed, Head of Forest Force (HoFF) Vinod Kumar said on Saturday.
Details related to the carnivores, their faeces, poaching, vegetation and human interference in their habitats were collected in the first phase, he said.
As part of the second phase of the tiger census, data is being collected through 1,798 camera traps installed along tiger trails on around 2,300 square kilometres of the two reserves, dividing the entire area into four parts. Of the 1,798 camera traps, 1,034 have been set up in the Corbett Tiger Reserve and 764 in the Rajaji Tiger Reserve, Kumar said.
Apart from this, the tiger census work is also underway in the Haridwar, Dehradun, Lansdowne, Kalsi and Narendra Nagar forest divisions, which border on the Rajaji Tiger Reserve, he added.
The exercise is also underway in the Terai West forest circle and the Almora, Champawat and Nainital forest divisions of the Corbett Tiger Reserve, Kumar said. According to the 2018 tiger census, Uttarakhand was on the third spot in the country in terms of tiger population with 442 big cats.
With PTI inputs.
