Nepal has begun its fifth national tiger census, deploying more than 2,300 automated camera traps across key tiger habitats to determine the country’s current tiger population. The nationwide exercise, led by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation with financial and technical support from international conservation partners, is expected to conclude in mid-March, with results to be released later in the year.
The census covers approximately 8,400 square kilometres of national parks, wildlife reserves, biological corridors and adjoining forest areas where tigers are known to occur. The landscape has been divided into three major blocks: Chitwan–Parsa, Banke–Bardiya and Shuklaphanta–Laljhadi. Scientific camera-trap methodology is being used uniformly across all sites.