Scientists have been counting tiger populations for decades, using a variety of methods including camera traps and DNA collected from tissue or blood after darting and sedating the world’s largest cat. However, a new method of surveying tiger populations could change scientists’ ability to non-invasively obtain accurate numbers for tiger populations around the world, according to a study in Biological Conservation.
The key is feces. Researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and the National Centre for Biological Sciences, collected 58 tiger scats in India’s Bandipur Reserve in Karnataka, apart of the Western Ghats. Using material from the carefully collected feces, researchers were able identify individual tigers by DNA.
To test the accuracy of their findings, they compared the results of DNA tests to counts made by camera traps in the reserve. Camera-trapping is considered the most accurate method of counting tigers; unfortunately, however, ...