Latest news with #DepartmentofWildlifeProtection
New Indian Express
3 days ago
- Science
- New Indian Express
Code Green
It was burning bright. For three months, a four-year-old tiger roamed across 12 villages in Lucknow's Rehmankheda area, killing 25 animals and keeping residents on edge in the forest of the night. Daily life slowed as people stayed indoors, wary of the elusive predator that was a ghost with stripes. To track it down, forest officials took a blended approach—mixing traditional tracking methods with modern technology. They installed AI-powered thermal cameras at five key points and deployed three thermal drones to scan the forest canopy. On the ground, trained elephants Diana and Sulochana moved through dense undergrowth where vehicles couldn't go. Meanwhile, a wildlife expert in Bengaluru monitored live camera feeds, studying the tiger's patterns to anticipate its movements. In March, came the breakthrough. AI cameras captured the tiger returning to a fresh kill. A ranger team was dispatched. A tranquiliser dart was fired, but the tiger fled, covering 500 metres before disappearing into thick foliage. Drones followed it from above, helping rangers close in for a second shot. Within 15 minutes, the animal was safely sedated. The 230 kg beast was then caged and transported to the Bakshi Ka Talab range office. The entire operation ended without a single human injury, thanks to the combined effort of AI surveillance, aerial tracking, and coordinated fieldwork. In the past, conserving wildlife in India often meant navigating dense jungles with binoculars, spending months waiting for elusive animals to appear, or diving into the sea with nothing more than a net. Today, conservationists are adding something new to their toolkit: algorithms, thermal cameras, drones, and even genetic samplers. From the cold, high-altitude deserts of Ladakh to the lush mangroves of the Sundarbans, across coral reefs, tiger corridors, and railway tracks, a quiet revolution is unfolding. Technology is changing not only how we protect wildlife, but how we understand it. In Ladakh, where the air is thin and snow leopards are more myth than mammal to most, a team of researchers set out to count the uncountable. 'Tough terrain and a lack of transport facilities were major challenges,' recalls Pankaj Raina from the Department of Wildlife Protection, Leh. 'We carried rations and equipment on ponies and set up temporary camps at subzero temperatures. Some places can only be accessed in winter, when the streams freeze. So, we'd place cameras one winter and return the next to collect them.' Over two years, they trekked more than 6,000 km and installed 956 camera traps across India's largest snow leopard habitat. But their real challenge began only after they returned with nearly half a million images. No human team could sort through that volume of footage manually. So they turned to AI. A system called CaTRAT, trained to recognise Himalayan wildlife, scanned each frame to identify species. But something more precise was required. A second programme was deployed, this one trained to analyse forehead patterns, which are more reliable. 'Only the clearest image from each sequence was used,' explains Raina. 'These were digitised and processed through AI software that scored pattern similarities, creating a photographic library of each individual snow leopard.' The study, published in PLOS One earlier this year, revealed a hopeful truth: snow leopards in Ladakh are thriving. And for the first time, India now has a national photo library of snow leopards—a visual archive that will enable researchers to monitor individual animals. Far to the south, in the forested corridor between Walayar and Madukkarai in Tamil Nadu, a different crisis was unfolding. Since 2008, 11 elephants had died in train collisions along a single seven-km-stretch of track. In 2024, the Coimbatore Forest Division responded by installing an AI-powered thermal surveillance system. The setup involved cameras that detect heat signatures in real-time, capable of spotting large mammals even in pitch darkness or heavy rain. The moment an elephant is detected near the tracks, the system sends instant alerts to train operators and forest teams. In its very first year, the system generated over 5,000 alerts, enabled 2,500 safe elephant crossings—and recorded zero elephant deaths. Technology is also transforming how humans coexist with big cats. In Maharashtra's Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve, AI-enabled cameras were installed on the edges of 13 villages starting in 2023. These motion-sensitive devices don't just record tiger activity—they analyse it, sending real-time alerts to villagers when tigers are nearby. The system has worked so well that it caught the attention of Prime Minister Modi, who mentioned the effort during the 110th episode of Mann Ki Baat.
India Today
08-05-2025
- Science
- India Today
Survey surprise: How 60% of Ladakh's 477 snow leopards coexist with humans
Ladakh hosts 477 snow leopards, two-thirds of the country's total population of these wild cats. The finding has emerged from the most comprehensive survey, spanning 59,000 sq km, of snow leopards in India to to the Status Reports of Snow Leopards in India, released by the Union government in January 2024, the snow leopard population in the country stood at study, conducted by Ladakh's Department of Wildlife Protection, goes deeper into the population status in Ladakh. It found the density of snow leopards varying between one and three individuals per 100 sq km. Remarkably, the Hemis National Park in the region was found to have the most concentrated presence of snow leopards the elusive nature of the animal, the study found that six of every 10 snow leopards in Ladakh coexisted alongside human habitations. This underlines the need for inclusive conservation strategies balancing traditional pastoralism and modern development. The reason for this unlikely coexistence is the resource-rich grasslands with a moderate climate and complex terrain, which tended to be home to a higher number of snow leopards, possibly due to greater availability of prey and the strong coexisting culture of Buddhist communities in the study, titled 'Comprehensive assessment of snow leopard distribution and population in the Indian Trans-Himalaya, Ladakh', was published on May 7 in the open-access journal PLOS One. It is co-authored by P. Raina, N.A. Mungi, U. Kumar, A.D. Rathi, N.H. Khan and D.A. coexistence, however, is not without troubles. Incidents of snow leopards killing livestock continue to be reported from villages. It was during the Covid-19 lockdown that this conflict really surfaced as reduced human activity encouraged movement of the wild cats near villages. Nine cases of conflict were reported over two months in 2020, compared to two the previous year. At the time, six snow leopards were captured and held at Leh's rescue centre for 15-30 days for livestock the complexities of the snow leopard enumeration, Pankaj Raina, lead author of the study and Leh's wildlife warden, said: 'India has been monitoring its tiger population since 2006 with scientific rigour. This is the first time that the same statistical design and methodology have been used to assess snow leopards. The challenges were formidable due to the extreme climate, high altitude and rugged terrain.'The snow leopards report of the Union ministry of environment, forest and climate change had covered over 70 per cent of the potential snow leopard range in the country. Snow leopards are found in Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir and the Himalayan states of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal new study, while reconfirming the count in Ladakh, covered a more exhaustive area and generated a national photo library of snow leopards that could help conservationists monitor poaching and leopard presence was positively correlated with wild prey (blue sheep, urial, ibex), livestock encounter rates and terrain ruggedness, and negatively with human settlement density. High snow leopard density in productive multi-use areas, coupled with threats from land-use changes, climate shifts and poaching, underscored the need for protecting these habitats, promoting ecotourism and reintroducing prey species to depleted study's double-sampling approach, combining 6,149 km of occupancy surveys and 956 camera traps (97,313 trap nights), sets a new standard for large-scale, repeatable snow leopard assessments while addressing potential biases in prior studies and aligning with PAWS (Population Assessment of the World's Snow Leopards) guidelines. It involved analysing photos using artificial intelligence to identify individual snow leopards based on the distinctive pattern of markings on their foreheads.'To photograph snow leopards' foreheads, we had to make them pose in front of our cameras. This was done by spraying a small amount of perfume just below the cameras deployed near their favoured scent-marking rocks on the high ridge tops. The curious leopards lowered their heads to smell the novel smell, and we had our prized photos,' recalled Snow Leopards, a special pattern recognition software that fits a three-dimensional model on the snow leopard's forehead image, extracts the spot patterns and stores them in a database for comparing with other snow leopard photographs, thereby offering close matches. 'This reduced our work many fold and improved the accuracy of correct individual identification, which is crucial for population estimation using statistical models,' added to India Today Magazine
Yahoo
07-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Northern India's elusive snow leopards get their close up
Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Yahoo is using AI to generate takeaways from this article. This means the info may not always match what's in the article. Reporting mistakes helps us improve the experience. Generate Key Takeaways Adapted to live in some of our planet's most inhospitable mountainous regions, snow leopards (Panthera uncia) are the ultimate mountain climbers and an iconic big cat. A recent camera trapping study found that India is home to the most dense population of the black and white carnivores on Earth and most live in a remote northern region of the subcontinent. Here, they also appear to co-exist alongside rural communities, where they are respected by local human populations. The findings are detailed in a study published May 7 in the open-access journal PLOS One. Snow leopards are found in mountainous regions across 12 Asian countries: Afghanistan, Bhutan, China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz Republic, Mongolia, Nepal, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Their signature fur acts as natural camouflage against the snowy mountains, where they prey on a variety of sheep, ibex, hares, marmots, and pika. A snow leopard (R) eyes a dog along a mountainside at Thiksey village on the outskirts of Leh in India's Ladakh region on February 13, 2024. CREDIT: MOHD ARHAAN ARCHER/AFP via Getty Images. MOHD ARHAAN ARCHER In order to effectively conserve this vulnerable species, researchers need solid data on their population size and where they are living. However, the remote and rugged terrain that they call home and their notoriously shy nature makes this difficult. In this new study, a team from the Department of Wildlife Protection in northern India's Ladakh Union Territory assessed the snow leopard population across almost 23,000 square miles of landscape. The team started by looking for the tell-tale signs of snow leopards–footprints, scat, and scratch marks. They also surveyed for large carnivores like brown bears and lynx and wild herbivores and livestock. Next, they set up 956 camera traps along about 3,300 square miles occupied by the snow leopards. These non-invasive cameras are used to help scientists estimate animal populations across territories. 'To photograph snow leopards' foreheads, we had to make them pose in front of our cameras,' the team wrote in a statement. 'This was done by spraying a small amount of perfume just below the cameras that were deployed near their favored scent marking rocks on the high ridge tops. The curious leopards lower their heads to smell the novel smell and we have our prized photos!' Camera trapping image during the study. CREDIT: Department of Wildlife Protection, UT Ladakh. Finally, they used artificial intelligence to analyze the photos and identify individual snow leopards by their distinct patterns of markings on their foreheads. This method called 'fingerprinting' uses a special pattern recognition software to look at the spot patterns and store them in a database. This way, scientists can compare it with other snow leopard photos and come up with matches. 'This reduced our work many fold and improved the accuracy of correct individual identification that is crucial for population estimation using statistical models,' the team says. With this data, the team estimates that Ladakh is home to 477 snow leopards, or 68 percent of India's total population. The density varied between one to three snow leopards per 38 square miles. According to these results, Hemis National Park has the highest density of snow leopards recorded anywhere on Earth. Additionally, 61 percent of snow leopards in Ladakh co-exist right alongside human populations. The resource-rich grasslands with a moderate climate and complex terrain tended to have a higher number of snow leopards, likely due to more prey and less human disturbance. [ Related: Mountain lions in Los Angeles become night owls to avoid humans. ] According to the team, this method of tracking and monitoring snow leopards could be used to regularly monitor these elusive big cats around the globe. They also generated a national photo library of snow leopards, which can help conservationists who monitor animal poaching and trafficking. The team believes that multiple factors play into this wide distribution and high population density of snow leopards in Ladakh. Here, the animals have abundant prey, rugged and remote landscapes to live on, low human population density, and a culture of deep respect for wildlife among local communities. 'The deep-rooted reverence for wildlife among Ladakh's communities, combined with the economic benefits from snow leopard tourism and conflict management strategies, helps sustain some of the world's highest snow leopard densities—a model that could be adapted and upscaled across the species' range,' the team concludes.
