India’s tiger census of 2018 has set a Guinness record for being the world’s largest camera-trap wildlife survey.
According to the Guinness World Records website, this survey was the most comprehensive to date, in terms of both resource and data amassed.
The process, designed by scientists at the Wildlife Institute of India, began in December 2017 across different parts of the country.
A team of more than 44,000 officials worked along with 55 biologists over 15 months. Camera traps were placed in 26,838 locations across 141 different sites.
They surveyed an area of over 1,21,000 sq.km. Camera traps are outdoor photographic devices fitted with motion sensors that start recording when an animal passes by.
Also read: Burning bright: on India’s tiger census
In total, the camera traps captured over 34 lakh photographs of wildlife. From these photographs, 2,461 individual tigers (excluding cubs) were identified.
The photographs were used by scientists to identify individual tigers by comparing each tiger's unique stripe pattern.
The 2018 census concluded that India’s tiger population had increased by roughly one-third to 2,967 tigers, which is about 75% of the global tiger population.
