In the first deer census in Shuklaphanta National Park since 2022, three drones have been used along with cameras and wine coolers.
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Shuklaphanta National Park has been regularly counting deer since 2010. The head counting method uses cameras and a wine cooler. Technicians count the heads of the deer in the herd one by one and calculate the results. For that, they use cameras and a wine cooler.
This time, along with cameras and a wine cooler, a drone has also been used in the deer count. The count was carried out by flying a drone camera over the vast grasslands of the park where deer are found. ‘The deer that were not in the herd and were on the edge of the grassland were counted with the help of a drone camera,’ said Park Ranger Prayas KC. ‘The drone made it easier to count the deer that were scattered and could not be identified with the naked eye.’
According to the ranger and KC, the technicians used cameras and binoculars to observe the animals and fly the drones at the same time. This reduces the possibility of repetition. The deer come to the grasslands of the park to graze in the morning and evening. The same time was also set for the census.
According to Ranger KC, the census was conducted from 6 am to 9 pm and from 4 pm to 7 pm. According to him, the census was conducted even though the males and females could not be distinguished by looking at the drone camera. This reduces the possibility of missing the census.
The deer census was conducted from April 7 to 12 on the occasion of Wildlife Week. Although the census is usually conducted annually, this time it is being done after 2022. Only monitoring has been done since 2022. Purushottam Wagle, the conservation officer of the park, said that the census was not conducted intensively during the monitoring. ‘For the first time, we have used drone cameras in the elephant census,’ said Conservation Officer Wagle, ‘This will help make the census easier and the data more reliable.’ According to him, in the past, elephants on the edge of the forest near the grasslands were likely to be missed during the census, but this possibility has been reduced with the help of drones.
According to him, 3 drone cameras were used for the elephant census now. 35 technicians and elephants were also deployed for the census. In the census conducted in 2022, there were 2,313 elephants in the park.
The elephant census was conducted with the financial support of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) Nepal and the technical support of the Shuklaphanta Conservation Program of the National Trust for Nature Conservation. Currently, the work of analyzing the data collected in the field-level census is underway.
The vast grasslands of the park, spread over 54 square kilometers, are considered the main habitat of the buffalo. This grassland is an attraction for tourists to see the buffalo. Along with the buffalo, tigers can also be easily seen here.
