CNP begins research on carrying capacity of Bengal tiger

KATHMANDU: The Chitwan National Park (CNP) has begun a study on the carrying capacity of the rare Royal Bengal tiger. The CNP is conducting research on this wildlife's carrying capacity following a decrease in its population according to a recent finding.

According to ecologist Laxman Poudel of Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, the study team includes international experts -- Dr Rajan Amin from the Zoological Society of London and India's wildlife expert Abhishek Narayanan -- and the study is the first of its kind in terms of the participation of internal experts.

Methods applied by various countries in the world while conducting wildlife research have been adopted for the study. Other members in the team are Department's deputy director general Gopal Prasad Bhattarai and ecologist Poudel, Kanchan Thapa of the World Wildlife Fund, Dr Naresh Subedi of National Trust for Nature Conservation, another expert Dr Bhagwan Raj Dahal and under secretaries at the Ministry of Forest and Soil Conservation.

The study is a field-based one in which data plays a major role. The report unveiled last month shows that the number of Royal Bengal has decreased by 27 in the last five years at the national park. The team plans to complete the study within the current fiscal.

No study has been conducted so far to find out the carrying capacity of any species of wildlife in the CNP that spreads in an area measuring around 953 square kilometres. Its buffer zone covers an area of around 729 square kilometres.

It may be noted that the 2013 data puts the number of big cats in the CNP at 120 while this figure was found to have declined to 93 this year, drawing concerns from various quarters -- mainly people and organisations working for wildlife conservation.