The old pugmark is transforming into a digital footprint.

With real time information available through observation of tigers fitted with satellite collars, GPS collars and radio VHF collars, the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is for the first time creating a system for a central database on tiger movement and analysis.

The aim is to track tigers, monitor source population, movement patterns and also empower forest guards (who have so far recorded tiger movements in paper files) to make inputs into the centralised software.

Over the past two years, tigers have been fitted with different collars in a bid to understand their habitat better, most famously in the July-August translocation of a tiger pair from Ranthambore to Sariska, where the animals were fitted and tracked with a satellite collar.

However, there has been no software to collate or analyse the data centrally. Earlier, tiger numbers were estimated through pugmarks of different animals. However, in the latest tiger census released this year, the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) used camera trapping to estimate tiger numbers.

The system will enable forest departments to create an identity sign of each tiger. “We want to enable even the forest guard to put in his data entry digitally as opposed to marking his entry and observations in a paper file. We will make a very simple, easy to use system which will refine all observation processes. This can be uploaded directly to a central database,” says Rajesh Gopal, Member Secretary, NTCA.

“We will create a prescribed format where day-to-day monitoring can take place, which will also help in all-India tiger estimation. If I ask a forest guard where a tiger is, he should be able to tell me the movements of the animal. We will be able to thus create an identity sign for each tiger,” he says.

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