Wednesday, March 16 2005 13:37 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

Jaipur: Amidst the raging controversy over the reported disappearance of tigers in Sariska and Ranthambhore, the empowered committee on forest and wild life management, instituted by the Supreme Court, will supervise the tiger census operations to be held in May this year (2005) in the two reserves.

Official sources said in Jaipur today (Mar16, 2005) that help of voluntary bodies and wild life experts would also be taken in the census to be coordinated by Indian Wildlife Institute Dehra Dun for collecting authentic data about the number of tigers in the two reserves.

The census will be keenly watched this year due to reports of vanishing of all tigers in Sariska and falling of their number in Ranthambhore, with wildlife activists claiming that the cats have fallen prey to poachers.

There had been some change in the census programme also. The counting would be held in Ranthambhore Tiger Project area first from May 1 to 16 followed by Sariska from May 16 to 31, reversing the previous schedule.

The census would be conducted in both the reserves using pugmark, camera trap and transact methods.

On May 22 and 23 the wild animals would be counted by water hole monitoring method for 24 hours in full moon night in both the reserves.

Both the reserves would be completely closed to tourists during the census operations, sources said.