PIONEER EDGE NEWS SERVICE/ Ramnagar
Corbett Tiger Reserve has once again launched an elephant census after a gap of six years. The five-day special exercise aims to assess the elephant population, their movement patterns and the wildlife corridors they take across the forest landscape.
Announcing this, the CTR director, Saket Badola said on Tuesday that during the previous census conducted in 2020, around 1,226 elephants had been recorded in the Corbett landscape. “The fresh counting exercise, being carried out from May 26 to 30, will help us evaluate the current elephant population and their habitat use,” he said, adding that this time the census process has been integrated with modern technology.
Sharing more details, he said that the Forest personnel had deployed in their respective ranges to patrol nearly three kilometres on foot daily and record elephant sightings and locations through the mobile-based patrolling application ‘M-Strip’.
Notably, the exercise is being conducted across nearly 5,000 square hectares of forest area.
The Forest officials further said the survey would also help identify the routes and areas most frequently used by the elephants. “This information will play a crucial role in detecting the obstacles in wildlife corridors the jumbos face and in framing effective conservation policies for them in the future,” Badola informed.
Sharing more, the Forest officials said that the census is not limited to estimating elephant numbers alone. “It will also help in reducing human-wildlife conflicts and ensuring safer movement corridors for pachyderms in the region,” a senior Forest officer informed.
