News Analysis India

Tag: Wildlife Institute of India

  • Reserves across India to have their own schedule to conduct tiger census 

    Express News Service

    BENGALURU: Breaking away from its fixed schedules, the tiger census this year will be carried out on different dates across all reserves in the country. The decision was taken in view of the pandemic, paucity of time, and the availability of camera traps. 

    The Ministry of Environment of forests and climate change (MoEFCC), National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), and Wildlife Insitute of India (WII) have declared that the census should be completed by December to release the final report on July 29, 2022. 

    “The trainers and staffers at some places have completed their training and for others, it is underway. By the time the winters set in, the camera trapping has to be completed. The states can draw their calendar as per their convenience, festivities, pandemic and the staff strength,” said Qamar Qureshi, a scientist at WII.

    Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, wildlife, Vijay Kumar Gogi said camera trap is a continuous process. While some reserves and sanctuaries are fully equipped and have sufficient camera traps like Bandipur and Nagarhole tiger reserves, some others have a shortage. So the cameras will be shared on rotation from October 1 to December 31. A calendar for each sanctuary, tiger-prone wildlife area, and reserve is being drawn, he added.

    Also, the NTCA, this time is not particular of the sequence to be followed. They are not particular that line transect is done first and then camera traps. “It can either be done parallelly or altered accordingly. Since more emphasis is being given to technological details and stripe patterns, this time the chronology change will have little impact,” added a senior NTCA official.

    To ensure that the census is unhindered, the department is also thinking of restricting safaris during the durations when the line transect and field surveys are being done.

    A senior official from Karnataka said, due to the shortage of cameras, it is also being discussed if 2-3 circles in each reserve can be clubbed with the sanctuaries or tiger habitats in the vicinity to make the exercise faster and easier. “Since no volunteers will be called for this year, there are no restrictions on timings and walking path distances to be managed. With the help of experts the estimation exercise will be done faster,” the official added.

  • Cheetahs to be re-introduced in India, MP’s Kuno National Park to get 10 from Africa in November

    By PTI
    BHOPAL: Cheetah, the world’s fastest land animal which was declared extinct in India in 1952, is expected to be re-introduced into the country in November this year at the Kuno National Park in Madhya Pradesh, state Forest Minister Vijay Shah said on Sunday.

    The country’s last spotted cheetah died in Chhattisgarh in 1947 and it was declared extinct in the country in 1952.

    The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) some years back prepared a cheetah re-introduction project.

    The Supreme Court had earlier given its approval to introduce African cheetahs to a suitable habitat in India on an experimental basis.

    “We have started the process of creating an enclosure for around 10 cheetahs, including five females, to be brought from South Africa to Kuno in Sheopur district and it is going to be completed by August,” Shah told PTI.

    Officials from India will be sent to South Africa for sensitisation and training in June and July this year and according to the plan, the transportation of the cheetahs will take place in October and November, he said.

    Kuno, located in the Chambal region, is spread over an area of over 750 sq km and has a conducive environment for the cheetah, he said.

    The protected area, comprising a considerable population of four-horned antelopes, chinkara, nilgai, wild boar, spotted deer and sambar, has a good prey base for the cheetahs, he said.

    “According to the approved timeline sent to us by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change this week, the tentative budget outlay of the ‘Project Cheetah’ is Rs 1,400 lakh for this fiscal,” the minister said.

    The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is going to release the money for the project to Madhya Pradesh and the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) at Dehradun next month, Shah said.

    An expert from South Africa visited the Kuno National Park on April 26 this year along with scientists from the WII and inspected the facilities and habitat created there for the introduction of African cheetahs.

    They approved it and now the final process of bringing the cheetah is underway, a forest official said.

    Earlier, experts from the WII had visited four places in Madhya Pradesh to look for the best habitat for the introduction of African cheetah in the country last year, Additional Principal Chief Conservator of Forests J S Chauhan, told PTI.

    The WII team had visited the Kuno National Park in MP’s Sheopur district, the Nauradehi sanctuary in Sagar district, the Gandhi Sagar sanctuary on the northern boundary of Mandsaur and Neemuch districts and the Madhav National Park in Shivpuri district, Chauhan said.

    “Madhya Pradesh had in the past been home to cheetahs.

    The state has a long conservation history…we have the habitat. We also have a successful animal translocation track record,” Chauhan said, referring to the tiger reintroduction programme in the Panna Tiger Reserve in 2009.

    Cheetah is considered vulnerable under the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) red list of threatened species, with a declining population of less than 7,000 found primarily in African savannas.

    The Supreme Court last year set up a three- member committee to guide the NTCA on the cheetah re-introduction project.

    The panel has asked the WII to carry out a technical evaluation of all possible sites for the re-introduction of cheetah in the country.