Nepal begins census of endangered Royal Bengal tigers
Nepal
started counting endangered Royal Bengal tigers in its vast forested southern
plains, officials said on Monday, as conservationists help the big cats claw
their way back from near extinction.
Deforestation,
habitat encroachment and poaching have devastated tiger populations across
Asia, but Nepal and 12 other countries signed a pledge in 2010 to double their
numbers by next year.
Technicians
on Sunday began installing cameras in Chitwan National Park, the country’s
biggest tiger conservation area, with wildlife experts to identify individual
animals by their unique stripes.
Nearly
4,000 motion-sensitive cameras will eventually be set up across more than
12,000 square kilometres of protected areas and adjoining forests.
‘The
survey is aimed at getting information on the status of tigers which will help
us to assess whether our strategies on safeguarding the tiger population have
worked,’ Bed Kumar Dhakal of the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation
Department told AFP.
The
2010 Tiger Conservation Plan signed by Nepal is backed by celebrities including
Leonardo DiCaprio.
The
world’s wild tiger population rose to 3,890 in 2016, according to the World
Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the Global Tiger Forum.
It was
the first increase in more than a century and up from an all-time low of 3,200
at the start of that decade.
Nepal
had 235 tigers in 2018, according to a survey, up nearly double from nine years
earlier.
The
results of the census are expected in July.