Final list on census yet to be prepared

ANANTAPUR: New advanced technology and scientific methods are now being used this year, by the forest department to prepare an accurate final report on the census of the wild animals in the forests.

Previously, manual assessments were made ba-sed on the visible footprints of the wild animals. This was creating confusion due to duplication in this method.

The forest department has hence initiated steps to prepare the census re-port by now using a different software, in order to avoid duplication. 

The teams completed the census work one month ago in all parts of the Rayalaseema region. Footprints and other details were sent to the field directorate at the Srisailam forest area, Anantapur DFO Chandrasekhar told this newspaper.

Though footprints were a consideration in determining the number of animals, in many cases duplication was noticed because the animals were moving widely in their habitats. For instance, a leopard walked at least 20 km per a day in search of food and water. Several footprints couldn’t tally with the foot prints of same animal when it walked in different locations.

The double entries of foot prints would be deleted from the records, official sources said.

CC cameras and drones were used to get accuracy in the census. The latitudes and longitudes we-re also connected with the software for the purpose of counting the number of animals.

However, the number of animals of the various species has increased in the forests of the Rayala-seema region. 

The Kadapa forest teams have noticed the movements of tigers in the forests of the Rajampet sub-division. However, except for the big tigers, all the other major species were already in existence in the reserved forests of Anantapur district, sources said.

The number of leopards has reportedly increased since last year. The population of wild cats has almost doubled during the past five years despite the tough environment.

Forest department officials said that the final report on the census would be obtained in 15 days, by the field directorate at Srisailam, after filtering the population.

In addition to wild animals, the forest department was also hoping for an increase in the number of herbivores because of the sufficient availability of water in the tanks, channels and check-dams that were located near the  forest areas.