National census report of 2022 put the tiger population at 20 in Odisha
Photo: Author provided The forests of Odisha have 30 adult tigers and eight cubs, according to the All Odisha Tiger Estimation 2023-24, conducted by the state government.
Similipal Tiger Reserve in Mayurbhanj district was found to house 27 of the adults (14 female and 13 males) and all of the cubs, the report released February 26, 2024 revealed. One adult male each was sighted in the Hirakud Wildlife Division, Paralakhemundi Territorial Forest Division and Greater Similipal tiger landscape, the analysis showed.
Out of 27 tigers in Similipal, 14 (equal number of male and female) are usual morph tigers and 13 (six male and seven females) are pseudo-melanistic tigers.
In the latest all India estimation of tigers — the All India Tiger Estimation (AITE), 2022 — conducted by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), 20 tigers were camera trapped in Odisha, largely confined to Similipal Tiger Reserve.
Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik expressed his happiness over the new count. “Glad to share that the first All Odisha Tiger Estimation has established the presence of 30 tigers and eight cubs in the forests of Odisha, up from 20 reported during 2022,” Patnaik posted on his X (formerly Twitter) account on February 26 night.
Similipal is the only wild habitat in the world that has pseudo-melanistic tigers, said Sushant Nanda, principal chief conservator of forests (wildlife).
The growth of the population of the big cats in the state has resulted from strict management actions and scientific conservation practices, Nanda added. The images of eight unique tiger cubs during the estimation exercise have also indicated a recovering population in Similipal landscape, he observed.
The presence of three unique adult male tigers camera-trapped in the Hirakud Wildlife Davison, Paralakhemundi Territorial Division, Keonjhar Territorial and Keonjhar Wildlife Division looks promising and provides hope for a better future for tigers in these habitats.
Apart from these regions, there is excellent potential for tiger recovery in Satkosia Tiger Reserve and Sunabeda Wildlife Sanctuary, the report stated.
Unhappy over the tiger population estimation in Odisha conducted by NTCA in 2022, the Odisha government had decided to conduct its own estimation across the state.
In order to keep a close track of its tiger population and develop an appropriate management strategy, the All Odisha Tiger Estimation, 2023-2024 was conducted, which spanned across 47 forest divisions, aimed at much more intensive state-level tiger monitoring, the authors mentioned in the report.
The survey was conducted to look for tiger signs such as pugmarks, scrapes, scats, rakes, urine spray, vocalisation and livestock depredation, they shared. Sites where the direct and indirect signs of tigers were found with certainty were intensively camera-trapped to arrive at the minimum number of unique adult tigers based on their distinctive stripe pattern, the researchers wrote.
Camera-trap image based identification of tigers is a scientifically accepted methodology and is also used across the country, it added.
The camera-trapping exercise was conducted from October 15, 2023 to February 10, 2024. As many as 1,432 camera traps were used during the exercise and 567 photographs were analysed to find out the estimated tiger population in the state, said a wildlife officer involved in the exercise.
In the last one year, two big cats had also reportedly died in Similipal. While a melanistic tiger died in March last year, an adult Royal Bengal Tiger was found dead on February 9, 2024.
Lala AK Singh, a wildlife expert, said the tiger estimation in the state has put to rest the controversy surrounding the big cat population. “The silver line for the present result is that these figures have emerged out of better involvement of field staff. The numbers are higher than the previous estimate that had portrayed an entirely gloomy picture for the state from camera traps,” he said.
Although the expert lauded the state’s efforts to put out the first-ever quantitative data about the melanistic tigers of Similipal in 18 years of the use of the camera trap technology, he stressed that the number of cameras for the current exercise were still insufficient. “For Similipal alone, we used to have more than 4,500 pug-mark impression pads (PIP). The PIPs are like natural cameras — dust pads spread by staff on forest routes for registering evidence,” he added.
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