All-weather trap cameras are being set up in the South 24-Parganas division of the Sunderbans as part of the annual tiger census by the state forest department.
A senior official of the forest department said teams of foresters are setting up around 1,100 trap cameras at 572 locations across the mangroves. On Wednesday, they started installing 140 pairs of these trap cameras in the Raidighi and Ramganga forest ranges.
According to last year’s (2021-22) census, there are 96 tigers in the Sunderbans.
For this year’s count, the cameras are being installed in the Sajnekhali Wildlife Sanctuary, Basirhat range, National Park-East and National Park-West — spanning 2,584.92sq km.
Counting tigers and monitoring their movement in the Sunderbans is a daunting task compared with other forests in the country that have big cats because of the unique terrain of the mangroves and the fact that access to swamps and creeks is dictated by tide timings.
An official in the state forest department said data from the cameras will be collected for over a month and analysed to arrive at the tiger count.