Monitoring of tigers starts; Birds’ census begins

Bardia / January 17: A monitoring of tigers has started at Bardia National Park (BNP) from today.

The BNP said that as part of the campaign jointly launched by the government, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, WWF Nepal and the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC), the monitoring will be conducted at BNP, Khata biological path and surrounding areas through camera trapping technology.

BNP chief Ramesh Kumar Thapa said that trapping cameras, other necessary equipments were provided by the NTNC, while technicians and people assigned for the monitoring were earlier trained on the campaign.

Meanwhile, the census of birds has begun at the wetlands near Narayani and Rapti River banks today. The counting is aimed at determining the number of birds available in the wetlands and their present status among others, organizers said.

Different two teams were deployed for taking census in the areas, said Dhan Bahadur Chaudhary central member at the Nepal Bird Preservation Association. The census of the bird is taken annually in the same season under the management of Tharu Village Resort.

The census is expected to help come up with a new strategy for the protection of birds and preserving the wetlands. The counting began at the joint initiative of Chitwan National Park, Mid-land Area Preservation Committee, Poaching Control Youth Awareness Campaign, Nepal Birds Preservation Association, Bird Education Society (Sauraha), Himalayan Nature (Kathmandu), WWF Pond Project, National Nature Preservation Trust among others.

The counting started from near the banks of the Narayani and Rapti Rivers, and around the Devi, Kamal and Lame ponds as well. Only 47 species of birds out of 11 species, available in the Chitwan National Park were found at the area last year. Some 33 per cent birds available here were listed in the endangered list of birds.

Similarly, different 26 endangered species of birds are found in Chitwan National Park itself and 11 species rely on the wetlands for survival. RSS