Wildlife census commences in reserve forest

ERODE: Wildlife census began in Sathyamangalam reserve forest on Monday with more than 350 people participating in the activity. "The census would be carried out over seven days. We have formed 70 teams comprising five members each. Each team will cover a distance of 8km," said K Rajkumar, district forest officer, Sathyamangalam forest division. He said that the participants were well-equipped to carry out the census.
According to forest officials, the census would specially focus on counting of deer, leopard, tiger, haina, dhole and bear in the Sathyamangalam forest. "We have studied the movement of wild animals to carry out the census efficiently. Wild animals move from place to place depending on the availability of food and water. We have taught several techniques to the forest officials to help then identify and count wild animals," he said.
This time, an exclusive census would be conducted on tigers. "Differentiating between the tiger and leopard based on pugmarks is a challenging task. The leopard's pug marks measure around 1cm while the cub's pugmarks measure around 9cm. But the tiger's pugmarks are bigger than that of the leopard's," he said. Forest officials have been taught to differentiate between leopard and tiger pugmarks. They have also been given hands on training on how to use GPRS gadgets, he added.
One week ago, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) conducted a training camp for those participating in census.