India’s 2018 tiger census featured in Guinness Book Of World Records

India’s 2018 Tiger Census has made it to the Guinness Book of World Records for being the world’s largest on-camera wildlife survey.

The fourth cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation 2018 estimated 2,967 tigers or 75 per cent of the global tiger population in the nation. Its results were declared to the nation on Global Tiger Day last year by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Terming this achievement a great moment, Federal Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar tweeted, “The All India Tiger Estimation is now in the Guinness World Records for being the largest camera trap wildlife survey, a great moment indeed and a shining example of Aatmanirbhar Bharat (self-reliant India).”
He also said that under the leadership of the Prime Minister, India fulfilled its resolve to double tigers numbers four years before the target through “Sankalp se Sidhi”.

The Guinness World Records website said, “The fourth iteration of the survey – conducted in 2018-19 – was the most comprehensive to date, in terms of both resource and data amassed. Camera traps (outdoor photographic devices fitted with motion sensors that start recording when an animal passes by) were placed in 26,838 locations across 141 different sites and surveyed an effective area of 121,337 square kilometres (46,848 square miles).”

“In total, the camera traps captured 34,858,623 photographs of wildlife (76,651 of which were tigers and 51,777 were leopards; the remainder were other native fauna). From these photographs, 2,461 individual tigers (excluding cubs) were identified using stripe-pattern-recognition software.

A strict wildlife protection law implemented in 1972 made it virtually illegal to kill or capture wild animals even when “problem animals” were involved in severe conflict situations. Under pressure from global conservationists, India also upped investments to hire more forest guards and improve protection of reserves.

The results began to show in 2006, and since then there has been a healthy uptick in tiger numbers. But there has also been an increase in human-tiger conflict recently and one reason is that India has too many tigers and too few forests that can sustain them unless more protected reserves are added.