Bhanjanagar: The annual tiger census in South Ghumusar forest division and North Ghumusar forest division in Ganjam district will commence January 20 with the help of an online ecological app, said sources.
The tiger census will be conducted through online ecological app instead of the practice of collecting pugmarks, faeces, use of plaster of paris and trap camera methods.
The development came to the fore during a training programme of the forest officials of the South Ghumusar forest division office held in their office premises here, Sunday.
According to sources, annual tiger census is conducted in every four years and the census for this year will be held in four phases. The first phase will start January 20 and continue till January 25.
When contacted, divisional forest officer (DFO) Dillip Kumar Rout said, “This year, online ecological app will be put into use for the census where the forest officials are required to take the photographs of tiger pugmarks and faeces in GPS-enabled cameras and upload it in the app.”
This will form the basis for tiger census. The forest officials are being imparted training for the tiger census and several teams have been formed to ensure smooth conduct of the census.
Earlier, similar training programmes have been organised for the officials of North Ghumusar forest division. Bhakta Padarbinda Rath and Dr Nimain Charan Polei joined as resource persons and provided training to the participants.
PNN