- Nepal looks forward to its tiger and rhino counts beginning at the end of this year and in early 2026, amid delays and challenges.
- The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, in coordination with funding organizations, plans to conduct the counts in five tiger-bearing and four rhino-bearing national parks of Nepal.
- Although concerns over rhino counting methods remain, sources say they plan to explore more scientific methods for future use.
KATHMANDU — After delays, Nepal is set to conduct its tiger survey and rhino count starting between December and March next year. The Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC), in collaboration with partner organizations, aims to conduct the count in five tiger-bearing and four rhino-bearing national parks of Nepal, including Parsa, Banke, Bardiya, Chitwan, and Shuklaphanta.
“Given the numerous delays for the census this year, we are planning to begin the tiger survey in December and rhino count in March,” said Haribhadra Acharya, information officer and senior ecologist at DNPWC.
Despite a budget crunch caused by the USAID funding pullout this year and recent political unrest, Acharya said the department and partner organizations are in the planning phase and have formed advisory, technical and field task committees for effective and impact-driven surveys.
While the tiger count is estimated to cost around 15 million rupees ($105,000), the rhino census is expected to cost 20 million rupees ($140,000).
Although the censuses faced delays due to budget constraints, Acharya said the government plans to conduct the population counts through financial support received from different agencies and organizations, including the WWF Nepal, Zoological Society of Nepal and National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC).
“We also plan to update the Tiger and Prey Base Monitoring Protocol 2017, which ensures two weeks of camera trapping duration for survey and sampling purposes. But the update would extend the duration for three weeks for effective monitoring of tigers in the wild,” he told Mongabay. As tiger numbers show signs of improvement outside the core areas of these five national parks, Acharya said their team also plans to cover a few additional areas outside the core areas.
In 2022, the country doubled its tiger population to 355 individuals, an increase of more than 190% since the 2009 nsus. Likewise, the 2021 rhino census estimated a population of 752, a 16% increase from the last census in 2015. Of the 752 rhinos, the Chitwan National Park has the highest number of rhinos at 694.
Information officer at Chitwan National Park, Abinash Thapa Magar said they are looking forward to the rhino count, which is set to begin in March and last for a month. Given that the park has a higher rhino population density and the census is conducted on elephant backs by head counting the rhinos, Magar said the situation could turn uncertain and risky in case of an encounter with wild elephants. “The wild elephants that are estimated to have increased turn aggressive when they spot any other elephant, and there have been attacks in 2021,” he told Mongabay.
One of the challenges, Magar pointed out, is the absence of real-time data on the location of elephants. “As a team, we have used data sensors in the past to locate the elephants, but these sensors do not function properly, while head counting rhinos is in a much denser grassland and forest area,” Magar said.
While collecting data in such situations might be challenging, a member secretary of NTNC, Naresh Subedi, told Mongabay the organizing team has been planning to explore molecular technology using dung DNA analysis to count the rhino population. “Even if the technology looks promising for rhino population estimation in the future and aims to reduce census cost, we need labs and enough human resources to be able to adapt this method,” he said.
The mark-recapture method using photographs is another method that documents individual rhinos in the field and later examines how many of those individuals are resighted to identify individuals. Although the team looks ahead to the head count method this time, Acharya said they have plans to compare and analyze both these methods in at least a block to check their accuracy and efficacy for future use.
“This year’s census would be a learning and experimental ground for the team to come up with a safer, more secure and scientific approach for the next census,” Acharya told Mongabay.
Cover image: A Bengal tiger rests on a boulder in its habitat. Image by Brian Scott via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
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