Hyderabad:As many as 14 individual tigers identified during the 2020-21 year Phase IV monitoring has been conducted in parts of the core area of Amrabad Tiger reserve, home to the highest population of tigers in Telangana.
Last time during the 2019 Phase -IV census, only 12 identified Tigers, according to an annual wildlife census report, was formally released by Ms R.Sobha, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (HOFF) here on Friday in the presence of senior officers.
Phase IV monitoring is being conducted for monitoring the Tigers in every Tiger Reserve in India, Whereas, estimation of prey population density ( spotted deer, Sambar, Nilgai, Wild pigs Four horned antelope and Chinkara ) is done by LINE TRANSECT ESTIMATION method.
This phase-IV monitoring and estimation will give an idea to the Protected Area (PA) Managers, how the Prey- Predator densities are there in the protected area.
Which areas in PA are more with prey densities and which are the areas where tiger movements are more and which areas are disturbed and require management intervention.
In case of Tiger monitoring, Phase -IV monitoring (Annual) is conducted in identified areas of the TR.
Once in four years, the entire Tiger Reserve, core and Buffer areas will be covered with cameras to capture the total population then more individual tigers could be recorded.
In the Line transect exercise, the population density of ungulates is estimated and the Spotted deer along with Wild pig occupied the first place with 2.40 individuals/ Sq.Km, followed by Sambar with 1.65 individuals/ Sq.Km and Nilagai with 1.41 individuals/ Sq.Km followed by Common Langur with 1.37 Nos/ Sq.Kms.
This year, Water hole census was also conducted in our tiger reserve, the results shown that early morning hours and evening hours were preferred timings by Ungulates for visiting water holes to drink water, a total of 43 wild animal species were recorded.(UNI)