The Periyar Tiger Reserve has decided to monitor tigers by cameras to identify animals, their home range and their stripe patterns.
The Scientific Monitoring of Tigers exercise is likely to commence at the reserve that houses about 35 tigers, in January.
"About 40 cameras in pairs of two each would be set up in a four sq km grid to 'trap' the animals. The entire 777 sq km reserve would be covered within four to five months time," PTR deputy director, Padma Mahanti, told PTI.
Seventeen tribals and two local youths have been trained to operate the cameras and help the forest officials in the exercise, she said.
"It would help in identifying the individual tigers, their home range and their stripe patterns. The cameras would be shifted every 15 days. Tribals and locals, along with forest officials, would monitor the activities of the animals after the traps are set," Mahanti added.
The reports compiled would be submitted to the field directorate, which in turn would send it to the National Tiger Conservation Directorate at New Delhi for records. Presently, monitoring of tigers is done by collecting its pug marks with the help of plaster casts.
It's a shame we can't protect our national animal
"Scratches of claw marks on trees, tiger calls, direct sighting and kills made by the animal are also recorded. All the information is passed through wireless network to the central pooling system of the PTR," Mahanti said.
The PTR has put on hold a plan to undertake DNA analysis of the tiger scats as of now, as it was working out to be very expensive, Dr M Balasubramanyan, Conservation Biologist, PTR said.
"The exercise was expensive as it would cost about Rs 5,000 for testing each sample of scat. The samples have to be sent to either Bangalore or Hyderabad for testing," he said.
On an experimental basis, the camera trapping had been going on at the PTR from the past three years. Around 40 Global Positioning System units were used to determine the exact location where the tiger pug marks were noticed.
When pug marks are found, the field staff takes down the measurement and date, and immediately informs another group for conducting GPS readings, which would record the latitude and longitude to show the exact spot that the animal had visited.
Efforts are also being made at the PTR to preserve the prey species and its habitat. Four tiger-monitoring teams in the PTR patrol roads and record direct sighting of tigers and leopards, along with date and time of sighting and place.
