Despite an expenditure of a little over Rs 10 crore in the last five years by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), over 40 per cent of the tigers in Simlipal Tiger Reserve seems to have vanished.
WILDLIFE activists fear that the loss of male pachyderms of critical age group to mishaps, especially on the railway tracks here, can pose a threat to the elephant sex ratio in the state, which has been gradually improving recently.
Kolkata: The big cats of the Sunderbans Tiger Reserve that stray into inhabited areas will be tracked with the help of an electronic microchip implanted in their bodies, Reserve Director N.C. Bahuguna said here on Thursday.
A pregnant tigress, captured by employees of the reserve on Tuesday night, will be the first to be tagged with a microchip placed at the base of her tail.
Like many species of flora and fauna, many avifauna too are endangered, especially due to habitat loss. While the International Conference on Hornbills exchange news, welcome ideas and make efforts towards their conservation by various means through greater networking possibilities today, there are birds which birders are still trying to find in numbers that might be viable.
Starting this year, an evaluation of tiger reserves by independent wildlife experts like Belinda Wright, Valmik Thapar and Ullas Karanth besides a host of others could become an annual feature.
The Environment and Forests Ministry is expected to take a final decision on the issue along with the dates for the Tiger Census 2009 in the next few days.
A pat on the back for wildlife officials is due, as the tiger count in Rajasthan's sanctuaries has increased to 44.
Three years back, tiger lovers in India and other parts of the world were aghast when news came in that tigers had vanished from the Sariska Sanctuary of Rajasthan, where at one time they numbered a dozen.
Here is some good news for wildlife enthusiasts. The number of tigers as also herbivores in the state has gone up this year. The number of tigers has shot up from 32 in 2008 to 44 in 2009, excluding two cubs.
HYDERABAD: A week-long effort last month to conduct a census of tigers showed a slight increase in their population from 102 last year to 106 in 27 protected areas of the State, which are all sanctuaries.
Senior forest officials explained that the population could be higher if the entire land mass of the State was taken into account.
