Latest tiger census kicks up a row

kolkata: the latest tiger census in the sunderbans which ended last week has sparked a controversy. while experts indicated that a huge margin of error was involved in the current pug mark technique, authorities claimed that it was the best possible method. ''worldwide, the camera spotting method is being used to calculate the animal population, especially tigers.counting pug marks is almost obsolete. results from the latest method were quite encouraging at nagarhole, kaziranga and namdapha,'' contended wildlife expert d.k. lahiri choudhury. the old method is based on the fact that no two tigers have similar pug marks, like human fingerprints. the new method involves the placing of two cameras, facing each other, in the tiger corridor. mark the time as well. this year, the sunderban feline population is estimated to be 280-odd. the 1999 census registered 360 tigers in the state, of which the sunderban tiger reserve had 254, the south 24-parganas forest division 30, buxa and jaldapara reserve forests had 33 and 12 tigers, respectively. whereas the mahananda and neora valleys recorded 13 and 18 tigers. ''a year ago ullas karanth, director of the india programme, wildlife conservation society, used this method in the sunderbans where tiger population was found to be much less than the official figures,'' said lahiri choudhury.a few years ago, karanth wrote about the reliability of the pug mark technique in a scientific paper. he asked six wildlife managers, each having between four and 12 years of experience in counting tigers, to take part in a blind experiment, that involved analysing 33 tracings of an unspecified number of tigers.