Bangladesh along with other countries of the subcontinent will be part of India’s tiger census to estimate the tigers and territorial spread of the animal in the region.
The census, which began last year, will see coordination with Bangladesh, Bhutan, and Nepal, particularly among the countries with shared borders.
India had in the past engaged Bangladesh and Nepal in previous tiger counts, but this is the first time all countries are uniting in arriving at the tiger numbers, reports The Hindu.
“We’ve had officials from these countries come to the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) for training,” said Y Jhala, senior scientist.
“This time we hope it will be a simultaneous exercise and tigers aren’t double-counted,” scientist said.
Since 2006, the WII — an Indian Union Environment Ministry-funded body — has been tasked with coordinating the tiger estimation exercise.
The once-in-four-years exercise calculated, in 2006, that India had only 1,411 tigers. This rose to 1,706 in 2010 and 2,226 in 2014 in later editions on the back of improved conservation measures and new estimation methods.
The survey — divided into four phases — began last winter and is expected to reveal its findings in early 2019.
Along with tigers, the survey also collects information on the prey population of deer and other animals.