Now, forest officials will be trained to use tiger web

Now, forest officials will be trained to use tiger web

Neha Attre
Posted: Sunday , Jan 24, 2010 at 0424 hrs

Lucknow: To ensure transparency of tiger mortality rates across the country, National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and NGO Traffic India will now train field officers of the tiger reserves to provide accurate and timely information on its recently launched website www.tigernet.nic.in .

The website has been developed to conserve tiger population by providing authentic information on tiger mortality.

Samir Sinha, head of NGO Traffic India, said: “The training is expected to take place on February 13 and 14 in New Delhi. The training for chief wildlife wardens and field directors will also take place on the same days.” “They will be told how to access the website and key in the necessary data,” said Sinha.

As part of the training, each Forest department official will be assigned a unique identification code and password. They will be trained in feeding vital information in case of a tiger death at the earliest including the cause of the death, postmortem report, parts recovered, injuries found on the big cat and their analysis of the incident at the earliest.

“Due to lengthy procedures and paperwork, it takes some time for the data to reach the NTCA. Through continuous online reporting, we will be able to get the details as and when the incident occurs,” said a senior NTCA official.

Not just forest department officials, any one can report such an incident on the website. Once verified, the details of the incident will be made available on the website as well.

In the first phase, Forest department officials of 37 tiger reserves in 17 states will be trained. In the second phase, Forest officials from areas where tiger deaths have occurred and is not a tiger reserve will be given training as well. “A training has been scheduled for the officials concerned so that they are adept in handling the website. Whenever we will be called for training, we will go,” said B K Patnaik, Chief Wildlife Warden, state Forest department.

Earlier this month, NTCA along with Traffic India launched the website to report on every tiger death in the country. According to the map on tiger mortality available on the website, in 2009, only two tiger deaths have been reported from the Dudhwa National Tiger Reserve.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/forest-officials-to-be-trained-to-track-stray-tigers-faster/556636/

http://bigcatrescue.org/