TATR: Maharashtra plans long-term study on tiger ecology
The Wildlife Institute of India (WII) will partner with the state forest department in the Rs 1.6-crore study partly funded by National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA). A pact between the three agencies is likely to be signed in December first week, according to WII scientist Bilal Habib, who will head the project.
“The project’s initial phase will span the next 10 years and it will provide baseline data from about 3,000 sq km of TATR landscape that includes various contiguous protected areas such as Nagzira, Navegaon, Chaprala and Umred-Karandla about not just tigers but all co-predators and prey species and dynamics of their relationships and co-existence. It will generate a huge pool of information about tiger dispersal, occupancy, the threshold of disturbance that causes conflict, corridors. It will also give a perspective about how and why the dispersal happens,” Habib told The Indian Express.
This is the first time in central India that long-term study has been planned. Wildlife biologist Ulhas Karanth has done it in south India without radio telemetry (radio collaring of tigers) over the past many years.
Asked why TATR was selected for the project, Habib said, “TATR landscape is unique for the dispersing tigers coming in conflict with humans and for its about 5-6 breeding tigresses adding to the population and triggering dispersal every
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