Publications
Assessing the Efficiency of Data Collection: A Case Study for the Royal Bengal Tiger
By Virenpratap Singh Bhaika
Published in the Curieux Academic Journal, May 2025 (Page: 262)
Also featured in the Harrow Academic Journal, June 2025
Abstract
India has experienced significant success in its tiger conservation through initiatives like the government-led Project Tiger initiative. Since Project Tiger’s inception in the 1970s, the initiative has been attributed to a 6.1% annual increase in the Indian tiger population. However, ongoing challenges for tiger conservation, such as habitat loss and human-wildlife conflict, remain prevalent. Altogether, this enduring problem for tiger conservation underscores the need for continuous and accurate monitoring methods in order to efficiently and correctly maintain updated counts on India’s tiger population. To this end, I used agent-based modeling in NetLogo to compare the time efficiency of two widely used methods for tiger population estimation: camera trap surveys and vehicle surveys. Results demonstrate that camera traps require significantly less time to count tigers, thereby providing evidence that supports their use as a more efficient and consistent population monitoring tool.
