Indore (Madhya Pradesh): Tigers and leopards will be recorded in the country for the first time in an online system. Forest workers are being trained for the exercise in Indore district and other parts of the state. Counting of wildlife across the state is to be held simultaneously in January 2022 next year. This time, during the counting, tigers and leopards will also be monitored with night-vision camera.

These instructions have been given by the senior officers sitting in the forest department headquarters. Now, places are being identified where their movement is more. Each forest division has to supply a list of these forest areas by November, so that cameras can be installed in the third week of January.

Under the new system for counting, collecting evidence related to wildlife will be done through mobile applications and by uploading photos. This data will be directly available to the Institute of Wildlife, Dehradun. To make counting more convenient, the headquarters has advised the installation of cameras.

Officials believe that, sometimes, the claw marks and faeces of wild animals are not found. In such a situation, it is easy to capture the movement of tigers and leopards on camera. For this, places are being selected where tigers and leopards are often seen—including ponds, rivers, dense forest areas and so forth. In Indore forest division, a place has been fixed in the Choral, Mhow, Manpur and Indore range.

Keeping in view the safety of wildlife, the names of the forest areas have not been made public. According to officials, hunters and poachers become active if they come to know of the place. The names have been disclosed to senior officers confidentially.

3,421 leopards, 526 tigers

In 2018, the Institute of Wildlife, Dehradun, had conducted a census. The presence of 2,967 tigers and 12,852 leopards was noticed in the forests across the country. In Madhya Pradesh, alone, the number of tigers has reached 526 and that of leopards 3,421.

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