Elephant and Tiger census

Why in news?

• All India Elephant and Tiger population estimation exercise to be done in convergence for the first time in 2022

All India Tiger Census:

• The All India Tiger Census is conducted once in four years.
• National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) in collaboration with the State Forest Departments, Conservation NGOs and coordinated by the Wildlife Institute of India(WII) conducts the survey
• It was conducted every four years since 2006
• The tigers are counted based on sightings in camera traps and indirect estimation methods.
• According to the most recent 2018-19 survey, there were 2,997 tigers in India, which is 70 per cent of the global tiger population
• The states with the maximum Tiger population are Madhya Pradesh (526) and Karnataka (524)
• In line with the Digital India Campaign, new technologies and applications were used
• A few of these include:
  • Mobile applications like  M-STrIPES (Monitoring System for Tigers – Intensive Protection and Ecological Status)
    • M-STrIPES uses GPS to geotag photo-evidences, and survey information was used to get the primary field data
  • CaTRAT (Camera Trap data Repository and Analysis Tool)
    • For the automated segregation of camera trap photographs to species using artificial intelligence and neural network models, software like CaTRAT was used

Elephant Census:

• The Elephant Census is conducted once in five years.
•  It largely relies on States directly counting the number of elephants.
•  In recent years, techniques such as analysing dung samples have also been deployed to estimate birth rates and population trends in elephants.
• According to the last count in 2017, there were 29,964 elephants in India, which is 60 per cent of the global Asiatic elephant population

Why is the Tiger and Elephant Census being conducted together in 2022?

• 90% of the area occupied by elephants and tigers is common
• Save time and cost
• To improve and harmonies the population estimation methods along more scientific lines

PRELIMS QUESTION

Consider the following statements:

(1) Maharashtra has the most number of tigers in India.

(2) More than 60% of the world’s Asian elephant population is in India

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Answer