31st January
by John Boyle
Today was a long but rewarding day with an early start at 7am. We collected our GPS units, compasses and range-finders and set off into the park in teams of five to practice a Distance Sampling Survey in vehicle-based line transects. Our team consisted of myself, Dr Alok Kumar, Dr Shiva Sawmy, Dr Ram Kumar Panday and Dr Ajit Kuman with Dr Stuart Patterson as our tutor. We completed a 5.3km transect and logged the number and position of all animals seen which included chital, sambar, nilgai, wild pig, mongoose, langur monkeys, buffalo and lots of peafowl. On returning to Sariska Palace we inputted our data onto laptops to be analysed later. After lunch we had a lecture by Dr Bivash Pandav from the Wildlife Institute of India, on the use of radio telemetry and GPS collars for monitoring wildlife. We then headed out in two teams, each with a radio telemetry receiver to practice using the equipment and to try to locate two VHF collars that had been hidden in the surrounding forest. Both teams were successful! The day finished with a lecture by Dr Raj Amin from the Zoological Society of London on Survey Design and work day drew to a close at 7.30pm.