Scientists working in India have developed a new low-cost method for monitoring the region's tiger population. By tracking tiger paw prints (also known as "pugmarks") and faeces, they were able to estimate tiger numbers with the same accuracy as was possible with camera traps. While poking through the undergrowth in search of tiger poop and pugmarks may not be as glamorous an endeavor as counting tigers using camera-traps, it certainly is more cost-effective.
The study, led by Dr. Yadvendradev Jhala of the Wildlife Institute of India, compared the population data they collected from camera traps to the population data they gathered by studying pugmarks and feaces. They found that the two methods enabled them to estimate tiger numbers with equal accuracy.
It costs $17,000 and requires 720 person-days to conduct a camera-trap population study of tigers at each study site. By tracking feaces and pugmarks instead, conservations can save a bundle. To collect data on pugmarks and feaces, it costs just $1240 and demands just 220 person-days of manpower.
Less than 3,200 tigers remain in the wild. The species once occupied a range that stretched across central, eastern, and southern Asia. Now, tigers occupy only seven percent of their former range. More than half of the remaining wild tigers live in the forests of India. Smaller populations remain in China, Russia, and parts of Southeast Asia. To best manage and protect tigers in the wild, conservationists must have some method of estimating their numbers and determining whether the population is increasing or decreasing. The pugmark and feaces monitoring method developed by Dr. Yadvendradev Jhala and colleagues offers just that and at a low cost.
Photo (top) © Yadvendradev Jhala / Wildlife Institute of India. Camera trap images such as this one come at a high price. Photo (bottom) © Yadvendradev Jhala / Wildlife Institute of India. Tiger pawprints (also known as pugmarks) and feaces offer a far less-costly way of counting tigers.
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Comments
I am very much delighted for such inexpensive tecknique for monitoring tigers in the wilds, but i have a little doubt about its accuracy. How could counting feaces could give us good estimate of population , I mean a single tiger could defficate more than once a day which led us to double counting and over estimation. How could they solve such difficulties?