IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Karanth, K.U.; Kumar, N.S. | |
| Distribution and dynamics of tiger and prey populations in Maharashtra, India | |
| 2003 Full Book | |
In India, tigers are distributed over 300,000 square kilometres of area and Maharashtra is one of the important tiger range states in the country. The state has an impressive variety of wildlife habitats and has a potential tiger habitat of about 6,000-9,000 square kilometres. The state has implemented several positive measures to improve the status of wildlife and it's habitat in Maharashtra. However, there is no reliable information on the current distributional range of tiger populations in Maharashtra and any measures of their relative abundance in order to adaptively react to their management needs. There is a need to monitor tiger and prey populations in a few select habitats with potentially viable breeding tiger populations in Maharashtra to ensure their long-term survival. This project aims at establishing benchmark estimates and monitoring three critical, productive tiger and prey populations in three of the high potential areas (Tadoba, Melghat and Pench) of the state. This project will also help to provide a valid base for the scientific management of these areas, as well as to evaluate to what extent tigers, prey and habitat are responding to the conservation interventions which are being implemented under other projects. During the reporting period, field surveys have been completed at all the three high priority tiger habitats of the state. Major accomplishments include first-ever abundance estimates of tiger and prey populations using rigorous methods for Tadoba, Melghat and Pench; training of Maharashtra state Forest Department staff and local volunteers; and identification of two highly motivated local NGO volunteers for long term collaboration and monitoring. Field activities specifically included camera trap surveys (Tadoba: 60 trap locations, 715 trap nights; Melghat: 60 trap locations, 896 trap nights; Pench: 60 trap locations, 715 trap nights), line transect surveys (Tadoba: 36 lines, 1088 km; Melghat: 25 lines, 771 km; Pench: 30 lines, 894 km) and sign encounter surveys (Tadoba: 24 routes & 286 km in scat encounter surveys and 136 pellet plots in pellet count surveys). A total of 4 slide talks/field demonstrations were held in addition to 7 field workshops wherein 82 local volunteers and 77 departmental staff participated in these training activities. |
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