Ooty: The weeklong animal population estimation and habitat evaluation at the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) got underway on Wednesday.

Mr Srinivas Reddy, field director of MTR, said that as per the National Tiger Conservation Authority norms, tiger reserves have to conduct two biannual population estimation, one during the pre-monsoon weeks and one in the post-monsoon period to assess the health of the habitat and the population of animals.

“For this purpose the MTR woods have been divided into 37 transect zones. Forest staff and volunteers from green groups and student volunteers are participating in the enumeration duty inside the woods of the MTR. The teams in different transect zones would study the movement of animals and the wealth of the prey base for the tiger and other carnivores and wealth of flora, fodder availability, water sources in the respective transects.

This would give a comprehensive data on the population and movement of tigers and also other animals in the MTR in the post-monsoon period wherein the winter sets in.” he explained.

The data collected during the week would help compare it with the figures of the previous such estimation and to find out if there is any notable changes in any transects to study further and to take necessary remedial measures, if needed, he added.