Soon, tigers in India will have a unique identification number and code to avoid duplicate sightings of the big cats across reserves that are inter-connected. It will also give a more accurate estimate of the tiger population in the country. The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is speeding up the implementation of the project and has asked Dr Ullas Karanth to help create a national database for tigers and to begin providing UIDs.
Tigers will be photographed by the camera trap equipment inside tiger reserves and then given a UID. The stripes on a tiger vary on the left and right side of an animal, so both sides will have to be photographed. Dr Ullas Karanth, who heads the Wildlife Conservation Society (India programme), told Deccan Chronicle that the NTCA has asked him to share his data on tigers since 2006. “We have sufficient data on tigers and photographs from both angles so that there is no question of duplication. Many states are claiming tiger numbers which may not be totally true. The tigers that are being sighted in the forests of Kerala and Tamil Nadu have possibly moved from Bandipur Reserve. Unless you have photographs of both sides of a tiger it’s not possible to pinpoint the animal,” Mr Karanth explained.
The NTCA has also asked for tiger data from organisations such as the Wildlife Institute of India in Dehradun and the World Wildlife Fund in New Delhi. “The idea is to avoid duplication and create a national data base on tigers. The information on tigers will be made available to all the tiger reserve heads in the country. There are 40 tiger reserves spread in five geographical zones — Western Ghats, Sundarbans, Central India, North East region and Terai region — and more are going to be added. Once the UID for all the tigers is completed we can arrive at an accurate tiger population in the country,” said an official from the NTCA.