Status of Tigers in Pilibhit Forest Division Terai Arc Landscape, Uttar Pradesh, India Citation: Anwar, M., Kumar, H., Vattakaven, J., 2010. Status of Tigers in Pilibhit Forest Division, Terai Arc Landscape, Uttar Pradesh, India. WWF-India. Copyright © 2010- All rights reserved WWF-India 172-B, Lodi Estate New Delhi 110 003, India Tel. +91-11-4150 4797 Website: www.wwfindia.org Published: August 2010 Tiger Population In Pilibhit Forest Division 2010 page 2 CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 6 SUMMARY 7 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 8 CHAPTER 2: STUDY AREA 10 2.1 Location 2.2 Physical features 2.3 Flora & fauna CHAPTER 3: METHODS 14 3.1 Pre-field work 3.2 Reconnaissance survey 3.3 Data collection 3.4 Analytical details 3.4.1 Mark-Recapture approach 3.4.2 Inverse Prediction Method for density estimation 3.4.3 Maximum Likelihood method for density estimation CHAPTER 4: RESULTS 21 4.1 Capture Dynamics 4.2 New Capture Saturation 4.3 Closure Test and Model selection 4.4 Tiger Population (N-hat) 4.5 Tiger Density (D-hat) CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION 28 5.1 Capture Dynamics 5.2 New Capture Saturation 5.3 Closure Test and Model selection 5.4 Tiger Population (N-hat) 5.5 Tiger Density (D-hat) CHAPTER 6: MANAGEMENT IMPLICATIONS AND 30 RECOMMENDATIONS REFERENCES 31 ANNEXURES 34 Annexure 1 Annexure 2 Annexure 3 Annexure 4 Annexure 5 Annexure 6 Annexure 7 Annexure 8 Annexure 9 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: Location map of Pilibhit forest division and adjoining Protected Areas Figure 3.1: Location of trap stations over Landsat image of Pilibhit forest division Figure 3.3: Camera trap locations with minimum convex polygon, ½ MMDM and MMDM buffers (a) and with habitat masking (b) Figure 4.1: Percentage of captures of males and females in different quarters of total occasions Figure 4.2: Photographs of individual tigers (Right & Left flanks) with a map of capture sites Figure 4.3: Rate of tiger photographs and cumulative number of new captures in Pilibhit Forest Division LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: X-matrix of individual tigers (11) in Pilibhit forest division for 40 occasions and 73 captures used in Capture, CloseTest and MARK 4.1 Table 3.2: Matrix used in Density 4.4.5 Table 3.3: Trap location file used in Density 4.4.5 Table 4.1: Selected model and tiger population with other statistics in the study area Table 4.2: Tiger density and other statistics in the study area © JOSEPH VATTAKAVEN/WWF-INDIA ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS We would like to thank the following organizations and associated individuals for their help and inputs in carrying out the present study successfully. Forest Department, Uttar Pradesh, for permission, logistic support, secondary information, and assistance in data collection. Mr. B. K. Patnaik, (PCCF), Mr. V. K. Singh (DFO-Pilibhit), Mr. S. R. Singh (S.D.O.), Mr. R. P. Yadav (Range Officer (RO)-Mahof), Mr. Alijaan Ansari (R.O.-Mala), Mr. Imtiyaz Siddiqui (R.O.- Barahi), Mr. Mobin Arif (Forester), Mr. Navneet Singh (Forester), Mr. M. Arif (Forester), Mr. P. P. Singh (Forester), forest guards, beat watchers and rest house care takers. Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, for technical inputs, guidance in data analysis, and assistance in data collection Mr. Qamar Qureshi (Scientist-F), Dr. Y.V. Jhala (Scientist-G), Mr. Manas P. Manjrekar (Research Fellow), Mr. Dipankar Lakhar (Research Fellow), Mr. Awanish K. Rai (Research Fellow), Mr. Wasi Azmi (Volunteer), Mr. Anant Pandey (Research Fellow ), Mr. Chitranjan Dave (Research Fellow), Ms. Swati, Mrs. Babita and Mr. Ved P. Ola. WWF- India (Pilibhit Field Office), for accounts management and smooth running of data collection. Mr. Anil Srivastva (Accounts officer), Mr. Kandhai lal (Asst. Project Officer), Mr. Virendra (Driver), Mr. Prem (Driver). WWF- India (Ramnagar Field Office), for accounts related tasks and coordination. Mr. Hem Tewari (Landscape Coordinator), Mr. Neeraj Pant (Accounts Officer), Mr. Prem (Office Attendant). WWF- India (Secretariat-New Delhi) We wish to thank Mr. Ravi Singh, SG & CEO, WWF-India. Dr. Sejal Worah, Programme Director, & Dr Dipankar Ghose, Director, Species and Landscapes for their timely inputs and help with logistics and coordination. Thanks are also due to Copal Mathur, Sonali Nandrajog and Anil Cherukupalli for designing and editing this report. A special thank you to Mrs. V. K. Singh, for regularly motivating the team in the field. We are also thankful to the local stakeholders (villagers) for restraining themselves from the study area during data collection and making the study disturbance free without any loss of camera traps. -Sd. (Authors) SUMMARY Tigers are a flagship and conservation dependant species © JOSEPH VATTAKAVEN/WWF-INDIA Estimating the density of tigers in an area provides crucial information to conserve and manage tigers, its prey base and habitat. The population and density of tigers in Pilibhit forest division was estimated in a systematic scientific framework using the camera trapping technique. Thirty best sites were selected as camera trap stations on the basis of occurrence of tiger signs. A total of 174 photographs were captured in 1200 trap days over 40 occasions with 76.7% tiger photo capture success rate per trap station. Eleven individual adult tigers were identified on the basis of unique strip patterns. The capture curve for new tigers reached an asymptote on the 13th occasion. Population of tigers was estimated to be 12±1.50 (N-hat±SE) by the selected model (Mh jackknife) and it could range between 12 and 19 (95% Confidence Interval). Density of the tigers in the Pilibhit Forest Divison was estimated to be 3.86±1.20 per 100 km² (D-hat±SE) using Maximum Likelihood method (Half normal, AIC=804.64) ranging between 2.13 to 7.00 (95% Confidence Interval) and 4.95±1.2 per 100 km² using ½ MMDM method with habitat masking and ranging between 4.58 and 8.00 per 100 km². Considering the biodiversity rich habitat of Pilibhit Forest Division, including breeding tigers, and its connectivity to other critical forest blocks in this landscape, we recommend enhancing the protection and status of this reserve forest and declaring it as a Tiger Reserve at the earliest. Tiger Population In Pilibhit Forest Division 2010 page 7 Chapter 1 Tigers are a conservation dependent species. They require 1.0 protection from poaching, an adequate prey base, and adequate INTRODUCTION habitat. While the tiger as a species may not go extinct within the next two decades, the current trajectory may cause wild populations to disappear in many places, or shrink to the point of “ecological extinction”-where their numbers are too few to play their role as the top predator in the ecosystem (Sanderson et al. 2006). Conflict with humans, prey depletion, poaching, habitat loss and habitat fragmentation remain the most obvious threats to tigers in the wild, underscoring the need for political will to confront these challenges (Seidensticker et al. 1999a; Johnsingh & Negi 2003; Graham et al. 2005; Wang & Macdonald 2006). India harbors a reasonably large proportion of the world’s tiger population. This is mainly attributed to a good forest cover (158,373 km2, 4.82% of total geographical area) under a Protected Area network (660) of 99 National Parks, 514 Wildlife Sanctuaries, 43 Conservation Reserves and 4 Community Reserves (NWDC, W.I.I. 2010) including 38 Tiger Reserves with an area of 32137.14 km2 (NTCA 2010). In India, conservation efforts such as Project Tiger have, since 1973, been attempting to save the nations declining population of tigers, their prey and habitats. Yet, about 26% of their range has been lost in the recent past (Qureshi et al. 2006). One such landscape, the Terai Arc Landscape, encompassing the Shivalik hills and the Terai flood plains running parallel to the outer Himalayas are considered one of the most threatened and fragile ecosystems in the Indian subcontinent. This productive landscape (Wikramanayake et al. 2004) is most prone to human disturbances (Johnsingh et al. 2004). The tiger has become locally extinct in 29% of the districts of this landscape where it was historically recorded. Currently, the tiger occupies 5080 km2 of forested habitats (Jhala et al. 2008). Protection cover for tigers diminish rapidly in the areas outside declared Protected Areas where boundaries of land use by humans and core tiger habitat are often blurred. These areas also witness human-wildlife conflict frequently. Therefore, estimating the population and density of wild tigers in such areas is of prime importance to ecologists and managers. In most situations the goals of managing natural animal populations are expressed in terms of population size. The use of capture-recapture theory (Otis et al. 1978; Pollock et al. 1990) and remotely triggered cameras to capture individually identifiable animals has resulted in their use for estimating demographic parameters (Karanth 1995; Karanth and Nichols 1998; Karanth et al. 2006). Owing to its applicability in a wide variety of habitats (Karanth et al. 2004) and ability to provide information on activity pattern, habitat use and reproductive status of cryptic carnivores, camera trapping has in the recent past gained popularity (Griffiths 1993; Karanth 1995; Karanth and Nichols 1998; O’Brien et al. 2003; Trolle and Kery 2003). Availability of various softwares such as CAPTURE (Rextad & Burnham 1991), MARK 4.1 (Cooch & White 1995) and Density 4.4.5 (Efford 2009) etc. makes this technique hassle free and statistically highly precise for estimation of populations. Tiger Population In Pilibhit Forest Division 2010 page 8 ©JOSEPH VATTAKAVEN/WWF-INDIA Tiger in Sal forest habitat The present study was carried out in Pilibhit forest division in Uttar Pradesh, which is a reserve forest in a human dominated landscape matrix. This study was the first of its kind in this forest division and was well supported by the Forest Department.