Odisha desires to have its own tiger census. Why so? How will it be conducted?

It was in the month of July this year that the state of Odisha doubted the findings of the AITE (All-India Tiger Estimation). Now, the government of Odisha has revealed its plan to conduct the exercise of a tiger census in the state.

What did the AITE report suggest?

The report by the AITE that was revealed in the month of July asserted that more than half of the tigers in the state had vanished in the year 2016. Moreover, it also stated that the Satkosia Tiger Reserve in the state does not have any tiger reserve. The report suggested that the state of Odisha had 45 tigers in 2006, but now has only 20 tigers left. The Simphal Tiger Reserve has 16 tigers in the year 2022. while it had only 8 in 2018, stated the report.

However, the Odisha government did not agree with the methodology of AITE and decided to prepare its very own census.

The tiger census in Odisha will commence in October 2023.

Earlier, the AITE made use of the pugmark method, but it got away with the method as new technologies came up. However, the plan of Odisha is to rely upon the camera trap technique, along with the pugmark method and other approaches.

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Why does the Odisha government doubt AITE's findings?

The officials of the Odisha Forest Department stated that the findings by AITE-2022 might not be a correct reflection of the number of tigers in the state, because the sampling intensity was low.

The officials are of the view that the AITE protocol makes it mandatory to conduct a phase-I survey in every forest beat (this includes protected areas, revenue forests, protected forests, reserve forests, and tiger reserves in all the territorial and wildlife divisions) along with phase-III survey in all the potential tiger-bearing forest blocks. However, in the state of Odisha, the survey was carried out in only limited areas, as contended by the officials. Odisha has said that only 733 camera traps were stationed in the state, while in Madhya Pradesh, the number of camera traps was 6,894, and in Maharashtra, the number of camera traps was 4,872.

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What is Odisha looking forward to with its own survey?

The state of Odisha aims to hold a rather realistic estimation of the number of tigers in Odisha and in the state-occupied forest blocks and habitats, for the purpose of enhanced protection and closer monitoring.

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