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Cat trail:The Manas Tiger Reserve in Assam.File photo
The Manas Tiger Reserve in Assam has 2.4 tigresses for every tiger, the annual wildlife monitoring results of the trans-boundary wildlife preserve has revealed.
According to the latest camera trapping assessment stipulated by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), the 2,837.31 sq. km reserve with a critical tiger habitat area of 536.22 sq. km has 52 adult tigers along with eight cubs.
This is an increase of eight adults and four cubs over 2021, the results released by Pramod Boro, the Chief Executive Member of the Bodoland Territorial Region on Global Tiger Day showed.
The assessment said 29 tigers were “repeated” from 2021 while 23 new tigers were reported. The gender of 27 tigers could be properly ascertained – eight of them males and 19 females, giving a sex ratio of 1:2.4, which is “positively skewed towards females from the ecological point of view”, a statement from NTCA said.
Camera trap stations
The Manas Tiger Reserve authorities had set up 381 camera trap stations with support from conservation partners World Wide Fund for Nature-India, Wildlife Trust of India and Aaranyak.
Mr. Boro also released the results of the population estimate of all other major species found in the reserve, claimed to have been done for the first time in a holistic manner by the tiger reserve’s frontline staff through distance sampling.
Forest guards and foresters deployed in different anti-poaching camps in Manas collected data on line transects from the backs of elephants using an Android-based digital platform.
The information collected was analysed at the Field Directorate of Manas and validated by the NTCA’s Tiger Cell in Dehradun’s Wildlife Institute of India, officials said.
This analysis, which will form a baseline for all future assessments, showed Manas has an estimated 3,220 hog deer, 2,613 elephants, 1,656 wild buffaloes, 1,174 gaurs or Indian bison and 804 sambhars.
The Manas Tiger Reserve is contiguous with the 1,000 sq. km Royal Manas National Park in Bhutan.
