Scientific Breakthrough Will Allow Accurate Tiger Counts

Science has opened a new horizon for the wildlife researcher to keep a vigil on the Tiger population of India. Recently, Wildlife Conservation Society of India(WCS) has announced a major development in the field of science to detect the accurate population of Tiger in India. This technique is termed as DNA faecal sampling.

Few days back a research was conducted on the Tigers of the Bandipur Forest Reserve in Karnataka, which is a longterm WCS research site in India. This forest reserve is positioned in the Western Ghats which is blessed with high abundance of Tigers. For over two decades, WCS has been engaged in saving tigers in the Western Ghats in collaboration with the Indian government and several local conservation partners.

S. Gopinath, a wildlife researcher of WCS has informed that faecal samples of Tigers are collected for the DNA analysis to count and asses the actual population of Tigers. WCS researchers has collected the 58 scat samples of the various Tigers available in this forest reserve as because every dung has a particular DNA signature.

Researchers has collected the faecal samples following rigorous protocols, then identified individual animals through their DNA. Tiger populations were then estimated using sophisticated computer models. These results were validated against camera trap data, where individual tigers are photographed automatically and identified by their unique stripe pattern.

DNA faecal sampling is a more improved technique as compare to the previous ones. Earlier, for the DNA analysis blood or tissue samples were collected from the Tigers which were darted and sedated. Even this DNA feacal sampling technique is more useful in areas like Russian Far East, Sunderban mangrove swamps and dense rain forests of Southeast Asia where Camera trapping technique is impractical due to several environmental and logistical constraints

According to one of the most noted Tiger scientist Dr. Ullas Karanth of the WCS, “this new study is a breakthrough in the science of counting tiger numbers, which is a key yardstick for measuring conservation success.” Moreover he added that this technique will enable researchers to establish baseline numbers on tiger populations in those places where it was impossible to accurately count the Tiger population.

The study appears in the June 16th edition of the journal Biological Conservation. Authors of the study include: Samrat Mondol of the National Centre for Biological Sciences; K. Ullas Karanth, N. Samba Kumar, and Arjun M. Gopalaswamy of the Wildlife Conservation Society and Centre for Wildlife Studies; and Anish Andheria and Uma Ramakrishnan, also of the National Centre for Biological Sciences.

No doubt, this new non-invasive technique will surely aid the Indian wildlife researchers to perform more vigorous jobs in assessing the Tiger population and in the success of future conservation efforts.