Friday 1 April 2011

TIGER TIGER BURNING BRIGHT....

William Blake in his poem wrote...
"Did he who made the lamb make thee...
....What immortal hand or eye 
Dare  frame thy fearful symmetry....."
The stripped predator  is back from the brink !
Front page news a couple of days ago of the 2010  tiger census of India ! A thing to rejoice by the environmentalists and also the tigers themselves if they could report!But what about man who are growing in alarming numbers and have spilled out into their region by clearing their habitat?
The monitoring exercise was carried out between December 2009 and Dec.2010
There were three phases involved in their estimation.
1.Field data collected at the beat-level by trained personnel using a standardised protocol.
2.Was the analysis of habitat status of tiger forests using satellite data .
3rd phase dealt with camera trapping .
Now what is camera trapping?Find out!
Camera trapping ,promoted by tiger experts like K Ullas Karnath has become  the primary mode of identifying individual animals .In 2010 census 550 individual tigers were captured and identified using their unique stripe patterns .
In the Sunderbans ,the census took place for the first time,five tigers were tagged with Iridium satellite collars and camera trappings was carried out in an area of 250sq km.
In the entire monitoring exercise ,800 camera traps were used,covering an area of 10,500sq km .
Based on the tiger numbers recorded in sampled sites an estimate was made for other tiger -occupied landcsapes. 
Additional information also was taken into account 
such as
a)tiger signs
b)prey availability
c)habitat conditions
d)human disturbance
The final estimates provide a comprehensive and a statistically robust result......Said Y.V. Jhala from the Wildlife Institution of India.
Total estimated tigers       1,706 in 2010
        ,,    ,,           ,, was     1,411 in 2006.
Number up by..............     295
Percentage increase           16%
Decline in tiger habitats }
across the country          }20,000sq.km
Tiger tiger burning bright 
In the forest of the night....
The endangered specie 
The national animal of the nation!

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