Great news! Tiger count in Assam's Manas National Park increases three-fold in 10 years
Image Credit: Pixabay (Representational)
Sumanti Sen
Assam's Manas National Park and Tiger Reserve has bagged the first-ever international award for conservation excellence after its tiger population increased three-fold in the last 10 years.
The big cat count increased from 10 to 30 in ten years, the primary reason being smart patrolling, which includes Android-based monitoring software M-STeIPES. The increase includes 26 adult tigers and four cubs.
"This achievement has been the result of very coherent team work by many extremely dedicated forest personnel and sincere efforts of some wildlife NGOs," field director of Manas Tiger Project Amal Chandra Sarmah told The Times Of India.
Besides the tiger population, the population of rhinos has now increased to 4; it was earlier zero in 2001-2 during "extremist" movement in Bodoland.
"This commendable performance has been possible due to adoption of smart patrolling like that of M-STeIPES and regular vehicle and boat patrolling. As a result of this, there has been no incidence of rhino poaching inside the park since 2016," Sarmah said.
During a virtual award ceremony organized this week, the award was jointly conferred on Manas National Park and its Bhutanese counterpart the Royal Manas National Park.
Claiming that the population of other carnivores besides the tigers, as well as the herbivores, has increased significantly in the last few years, Sarmah said: "This honour bestowed upon the tiger reserve has recognized years of hard work and conservation efforts of the Manas Tiger Project."
Tiger count