Tiger census work to start in Dudhwa National Park from Jan 15

Tiger census work in Dudhwa National Park (DNP) and in adjoining north Kheri division forests would start from January 15 next.
"Counting of big cats would be done by trapping their camera images," Deputy field director, Dudhwa Tiger Reserve (DTR) P P Singh told PTI.
"For this, 282 infrared cameras which are capable to trap images automatically during movements of big cats round the clock in the forests would be deployed at all viable places while Dudhwa field staff as well as experts of WWF would be engaged to collect the trapped images from the cameras for their analysis," Singh said.

He said that counting through camera images was assumed to be most accurate as stripes on every tiger are unique like finger prints of human bodies.
These stripes are analysed to reach the exact number of tigers in an area, he said.
"45-day long census would be carried out in two phases. In the first phase, southern parts of Dudhwa National Park and north Kheri division forest areas would be covered while the final phase would include census in remaining northern parts of DNP," Singh said.