MAHENDRANAGAR, Feb 5: The government started counting tigers in the country from Monday. The government begun the census with a plan to find out the exact number of wild cats at present and with a view to double the number of by the year 2022. The census will be complete in three months.
The census has been launched in five major conservation areas including Sukhlaphanta Wildlife Reserve, Chitwan National Park, Bardiya National Park, Banke National Park and Parsa Wildlife Reserve.
The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) has initiated the tiger census with technical and financial assistance from the National Trust for Nature Conservation and WWF-Nepal.
The counting started from Palash Ghari of Shuklaphanta Wildlife Reserve (SWR) by the Minister for Forests and Soil Conservation Yadu Bansha Jha.
In order to find out the exact number of tigers, the DNPWC is using camera trapping technology in all the five conservation reserves. According to Yuvraj Regmi, chief conservation officer of the SWR, 50 cameras have been installed in different parts of SWR while as many as 20 technicians have been deployed to monitor it.
Megh Bahadur Pandey, director general of Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) reiterated that the census will find out the exact number of tigers unlike previous census and will help in developing strategies and programs for increasing the number of tigers by 2022.
In the tiger census last year, ten adult tigers were found in the SWR while eight tigers had been found in the census conducted in the year before last, said Regmi. According to him, they have been conducting tiger census in SWR every year since 1999 to manage and conserve tigers.
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