Nepal tigers

[Jimmy]

(09-30-2018, 04:45 AM)Wolverine Wrote:

(09-29-2018, 11:05 AM)Jimmy Wrote: it's a sigh of relief that the number of tigers in nepal have increased overall , I learned the news that there were racket of poachers from Rajasthan India which were especially notorious for hunting tigers, but The Nepalese authorities acted in time and stopped them. here  is the Link,  there were talks that the the tiger numbers might had decreased significantly in Nepal cuz the census result was proposed to be announced at "International Tiger Day" in July but authorities cited they had yet to match all the camera trapped images, hence the delay. Actually 1n 2009, the number was 121 tigers so it would be 242 for the year 2022- The year of the tiger, but the conservationists ambitiously wanted the figure of 250 tigers within Nepal. Had the population of tigers in Chitwan increased or even remained the same we would have achieved 2x2 tigers 4 years ahead of the time-frame. Now the authorities are concerned about Chitwan because it is Nepal's first national park, with big investment and research, huge buffer areas, good prey base and  well informed locals that want their wildlife protected yet the tigers have failed to increase in numbers. From my point of view it seems normal, i think Chitwan can hold from plus or minus 100-120 tigers, anything more than that will be dispersed into neighbouring Parsa reserve or Balmiki reserve in India. These parks have recently seen increase number of Tigers as well so overall it tells that these forest are acting as a well functioning corridors and tigers will disperse to the areas of less competition provided the habitat and prey is good. Regarding future of tigers, i think translocation of number of big prey species - buffalo, gaur, nilgai, barasingha will be carried out allover Nepal's Terai because their numbers seem to have saturated in either one reserve so there is no other alternative besides translocation, so there will be increased tigers in the future if there is a good protection, second thing is they should manage degraded areas and grassland and remove alien weeds particularly invasive mikania micrantha and billygoat weeds that wrecks havoc in grassland and destroys food supply for the herbivores. If thay can mange that the tigers number should stabilize at 250 in Nepal or even push to 300.

Jimmy, how many tigers and how many rhinos (optimal) could feed Bardya national park, what is your opinion?

They are very similar national parks with similar area 963km2 vs 952km2, similar vegetation 70% Sal trees, 30% grass with hills covering similar portions of the park, Bardiya being situated west is a bit drier and hotter than Chitwan -generally the eastern part recieves most of the monsoon rains but they are pretty similar in-terms of geography, rivers and ecosystem, i think Bardiya can support equal number of tigers as Chitwan actually Bardia has higer prey density, for rhinos, again, i think it will be close to Chitwan but since it is drier habitat maybe Bardiya can support around 500 since Chitwan is already supporting more than 600 rhinos. We can guess estimate once the Chitwan population of rhinos stabilize. Reply