Status of Tigers, Co-Predator and Prey in Pandharkawada Forest Division (Territorial) 2021

Abstract

The Phase IV monitoring for the Pandharkawada Forest Division (Territorial) was conducted from March –April (2021) as part of the project “Long Term Monitoring of Tigers, Co-Predators and Prey species in Vidarbha Landscape, Maharashtra, India”. The exercise aimed to cover an area of 655.336 km2 of the forested area of the entire division. The objective of the Phase IV Monitoring is to estimate the minimum number of tigers in the Pandharkawada Forest Division using Spatially-Explicit-Capture-Recapture Sampling and density estimation of prey species using Line transect based Distance Sampling. 110 pairs of camera traps were placed in the forested area of Pandharkawada Forest Division following a sampling grid of 2 km2 in all four blocks. The camera traps were active for average 30 days in each block yielding a sampling effort 3508 of trap nights of data which is used for further analysis. From the camera trap photographs 11 tigers (unique to Pandharkawada Forest Division) and 10 leopards have been identified. Tiger density per 100 km2 based on the Spatially Explicit Capture-Recapture (SECR) model was 2.356 (SE ± 0.727) in the forest division while that of leopards based on the same method was 2.99 (SE ±1.03). To estimate prey density, 84 line-transects were laid randomly all over the division and were sampled 7 times during the sampling period, with a total walking effort of 1176 km was invested. The observations include chital (Axis axis), nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus), chousingha (Tetracerus quadricornis), langur (Semnopithecus sp), wild boar (Sus scrofa), chinkara (Gazella bennetii), Indian hare (Lepus nigricollis) and peafowl (Pavo cristatus). As per the observations, Nilgai (n=278) is the most observed species followed by Wild boar (n=77), Peafowl (n= 54), Indian hare (n=45) and Chital (n=44). The overall prey density of Pandharkawada Forest Division is 10.977 (SE± 1.19). Due to very low observations (n<20) densities of chousingha and chinkara could not be estimated. To study the activity, we used the camera trap images. The times recorded on camera trap photos provide information on the period during the day that a species is most active. Species active at the same periods may interact as predator and prey, or as competitors. Sensors that record active animals (e.g. camera traps) build up a record of the distribution of activity over the day. Records are more frequent when animals are more active and less frequent or absent when animals are inactive. The area under the distribution of records thus contains information on the overall level of activity in a sampled population. We used IDW (Inverted distance weighted) to map the intensive area used by different animal species.