A countrywide count of India's tigers takes place every four years and the result of the latest census was released last month. It showed a 30% rise in tiger numbers since 2010.
A few critics, led by veteran tiger expert K Ullas Karanth, called the exercise "flawed" in parts and said it did not follow the "best available methodology" (TOI report `Meow, not roar: Experts maul census data', on February 4).
"These inferences are unfair," said Yadvendra D Jhala from Wildlife Institute of India, who is principal investigator of the tiger census exercise. "We use all published animal abundance methods -occupancy, capture-mark-recapture and distance sampling using the best available technology of remote camera traps, seethrough compasses, laser range finders and GPS," he told TOI. Answering the charge that "outdated" analytical tools such as regression and double sampling were being used, Jhala said, "Mathematics does not get outdated.
The analysis suggested by critics — the 'occupancy' method, which, incidentally, is used and reported in all our reports — also uses regression and double sampling.
The criticism probably stems from a lack of understanding." Qamar Qureshi, also from WII and a principal investigator in the census, said Karanth had also suggested that tigers should be monitored annually in place of the four-year countrywide assessment."This is being done. Around 80% of our tigers reside in 20% of the occupied area (protected forests). These source populations are being annually monitored by camera traps in all tiger reserves. It's known as phase IV monitoring and was envisaged by us way back in 2005," he said.
Rebutting the charge that the census exercise was a government monopoly, Rajesh Gopal, additional DG of Project Tiger, said a number of NGOs were involved in data collection using camera traps and distance sampling, and the subsequent analysis. "Karanth himself runs two NGOs involved in the process," he said.
The current methodology was introduced after the extinction of tigers from Sariska. The then-PM, Manmohan Singh, appointed a Tiger Task Force which in its report said the pugmark method being used at the time was exaggerating tiger numbers -the 2001 census put the big cat population at 3,500 -and identified the lack of a credible monitoring system as a major impediment to tiger conservation.
The 2006 census, conducted using the new methodology, found there were just 1,411 tigers in the country in 2006.
"At that time, government invited four international experts -from International Union for Conservation of Nature, University of Rome, Smithsonian Institution and Zoological Society of London -to review our methodology . All reviews were positive. Several peer-reviewed papers have also been published. Thus, the contention that the method is not peer reviewed is incorrect," said Qureshi.
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