Valmiki Tiger Reserve. Telegraph picture

Patna, Nov. 27: The range officers and foresters of Valmiki Tiger Reserve (VTR) would soon learn the tricks of camera trapping.

They would be given special instructions on the subject at a meet organised by National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) at the Jim Corbett National Park.

The training programme would be held on December 22 and 23.

A decision to this effect was taken in the two-day meeting organised by NTCA as part of the preparations for the annual exercise of counting tigers, which has been made compulsory from this year by all the 41 reserves of the country. The meeting concluded on Saturday.

“The training is going to be of great help, as NTCA would provide just the technical assistance for counting the tigers and reserves have to use their own resources. A trained workforce would be a big help because camera-trap method is going to be the mainstay for the census work,” VTR director Santosh Tiwari, who took part in the meeting, told The Telegraph over phone.

VTR management would start gathering information in January next year. Its report has to be submitted to the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, by March end.

“We are going to focus on the areas where presence of tigers has been reported in the recent past. The camera-traps would be installed at strategic points in Manguraha and Madanpur ranges,” Tiwari said. He added that the tiger trackers had reported the presence of about nine big cats from these two ranges and camera trap data would help in authenticating these reports.

He also said after completing the work in these two ranges, camera trap work would be done in Ganauli and Govardhana ranges from where, too, trackers have reported the presence of tigers. “We have made this plan in accordance with the existing report. If during the course of the census, reports suggesting presence of tigers from other ranges are gathered, we would cover those areas as well.”

He, however, made it clear that the entire 750sqkm area, which has been identified as tiger-inhabited zone in the 2011 census, would not be covered during the annual exercise. “We have to provide the minimum number. Hence, we would focus on those areas where chances of capturing tiger pictures would be more because the exercise has to be carried out in a limited timeframe,” Tiwari said.

As far as availability of sufficient number of cameras is concerned, the reserve would take help from agencies specialising in such work, as it has about 10 cameras at its disposal just against the requirement of 30.