Guwahati: The population of Royal Bengal tigers have increased in Assam with the latest census revealing presence of 143 big cats in the state.
State Forest Minister Rockybul Hussain told a press conference today that the tiger census carried out recently revealed that the big cats were in various wild life sanctuaries with the highest number of them being at Kaziranga national park in upper Assam which is a world heritage site.
Tigers are present in Manas tiger reserve and Nameri and Orang wild life sanctuaries.
The minister said for the first time World Wildlife Fund recommended camera trapping network device to track the tigers in the jungles.
The number of wild elephants had also increased in the state with 5620 of them counted in 2011 as against 5246 in 2002.
The highly endangered one horn rhino population, the minister said, had gone up from 1672 in 1999 to 2006 in 2006 and 2201 in 2009 when the last census was done, Hussain said.
With the translocation of two rhinos from the Pabitora sanctuary to Manas on Sunday the first phase of translocation was completed under Rhino India vision 2020, he said.
On frequent straying of wild animals including leopards from forests in the outskirts of the city, Hussain said a committee under Principal Chief Conservator of Forest (Wildlife) P C Chand with divisional forest officers Narayan Mahanta and Utpal Bora as members had been set up to study it.
PTI
First Published: Monday, January 09, 2012, 21:12