Today, 150 enumerators have been deployed in the Barandabhar area, passing through Triveni, Amaltari, Kasara.
What you should know
Tiger census has begun in Chitwan National Park from today. After training for the tiger census on Poush 1 and 2, 150 enumerators have been deployed in the area from today.
According to the park's information officer, Avinash Thapa Magar, enumerators have been deployed in the Triveni, Amaltari, Kasara, and Barandabhar areas today. Under the first part, 286 grids will be created in this area and the enumeration will be carried out. A pair of automatic cameras will be placed in each grid, he said.
Stating that the Chitwan National Park and Parsa National Park are being made into a block to count tigers, Magar said that the block has been divided into three parts. Cameras will be placed in each part for two weeks. 'The Chitwan-Parsa block is being created into 958 grids to count tigers,' he said, 'This means that two square kilometers of area are being made into one grid.'
The enumeration is also being carried out in Banke, Bardiya, and Shuklaphanta National Parks, which have tigers. The enumeration of tigers is being carried out in three months. Tigers have been counted every four years. Park employees, technicians from the National Trust for Nature Conservation, local volunteers, students and conservation partners have participated in the census.
The park office has stated that a technical camp has been set up in the middle of the grids to accommodate the enumerators. The enumerators will monitor the cameras placed in grids of eight to 12 according to geography on a daily basis. 'The study will begin after the cameras are removed from the grid. Automatic cameras will be placed in places where tigers are most frequented during the census. Those cameras will take photos of the tigers,' said Information Officer Magar. He said that the number will be divided based on the parts on their bodies by looking at the photos of the tigers.
'Each tiger has a different part. The first complex (group) is this, while the second has been made for Banke and Bardiya National Parks. There will also be three blocks within it. The third complex will be Shuklaphanta National Park and Laljhandi. It will be made into a single block,' he said.
Earlier, the tiger census conducted in 2022 had revealed that there were 355 adult tigers in Nepal. In that census, 128 were found in Chitwan, 125 in Bardiya, 25 in Banke National Park, 41 in Parsa, and 36 in Shuklaphanta. The park office has stated that preparations will be made to count the rhinos after the tiger census. The rhino census program was stopped last year due to budget constraints.
