The forest department is making all arrangements for a tiger census at Nagarahole National Park in Hunsur taluk in Mysuru district and at Bandipur and Biligiri Ranganathaswamy Temple (BRT) Tiger Reserve areas, starting this week.
The tiger census is conducted once in four years.
The census is being conducted at Nagarahole from January 23 to February 5. Hence, the department has cancelled the morning safari and boating safari from January 23 to 25 at Kakanakote. There will be no changes in the safari timings from January 26 to 29. There will be no morning safari from January 30 to February 1.
At Nagarahole, the morning safari is cancelled from January 23 to 25. Similarly, it will be cancelled from January 27 to February 1, according to a press release from Tiger Project Director Mahesh Kumar.
In Bandipur
The tiger census will be conducted from January 22 at Bandipur and it will commence at BRT from January 27.
Around 300 department personnel will take part in the tiger census in three phases in Bandipur. According to the last census held in 2018, there were 173 tigers in Bandipur. The figure is around 52 to 80 in the BRT range.
Each team will have three people. The details will be uploaded on the software developed by the National Tiger Conservation Authority and Wildlife Preservation Society of India (Dehradun).
No volunteers are allowed to take part in the census, this year, due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Only the personnel of the department will participate, said Bandipur Tiger Project in-charge director V Karikalan.
The ranges are divided into three divisions for the purpose of the census. Six days have been allotted for each division. Besides, the personnel will also observe other wild animals like elephants, deer, gaur and the situation inside the forest for conducive tiger breeding, he said.
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