By Taleeb Anwar
“Dad! Do you know that the number of tigers in India has increased again?” I was jolted back to the present with this question from my daughter.
“Oh, that’s wonderful” I replied.
She thought for a moment and then asked “But… who dares to count them?”
Who dares to count tigers
If someone told you that he is going into a forest to line up tigers and count them, most of us would advise them to reconsider their life choices!
So, how is the census of tigers done. The process is fascinating.
If we had to count students in a classroom, cars in a parking lot, or mangoes in a basket – we would just line them up, or pick them up one by one and count them.
Tigers don’t believe in such orderly behaviour. They roam across vast forests, often at night. They avoid humans and are masters of camouflage. They are definitely not going to queue up for a headcount.
Instead, counting tigers involve remarkable efforts from forest staff, scientists, ecologist and some help from modern technology.
The forest’s silent photographers
Across the forests, hundreds of small cameras are placed along trails, rivers and streams. These cameras are motion triggered. They wait for movement and whenever a tiger walks past – click! A photo is captured.
Of course, tigers are not the only ones passing by. The cameras capture all types of animals – the elephants taking a stroll, deer grazing peacefully, monkeys swinging by, birds drinking water, and often leaves dancing and grasses waving in the breeze.
So, we have dealt with the first problem – no one needs to line up and do a headcount. Instead, we end up with millions of photographs waiting to be examined and sorted. Just separate the photos of tigers from other photographs and we are mostly done. The catch? This would take months!
Enter AI – the tireless assistant
Artificial Intelligence, or AI, can do this work in a fraction of the time. The photographs are fed to an AI program which quickly separates the photos of tigers from other images.
Think of AI as a patient assistant (which we all need) – one that never gets bored, never complains and does not even take a tea break (sad, I know)!
So, Done! Not quite. There is still the problem of the same tiger passing through the same camera multiple times or even passing through multiple cameras. So how to distinguish one tiger from the other?
Here is a fun fact. Every tiger has unique stripe patterns. Just like no two human beings have same fingerprints, no two tigers have the same stripes. It’s almost as if each tiger carries its own natural identity card (and it does not even need to remember where it kept it)!
AI can learn to recognise these patterns. So, if the same tiger appears before multiple cameras on different days, the system realises it’s the same animal and counts it just one time.
Technology does not replace people
It’s worth remembering that the AI does not replace the dedicated forest guards, the scientists, the ecologists, and all those forest staffs who spend countless hours workings in difficult conditions. They still need to install the camera traps, monitor forests, protect wildlife and verify the findings.
Technology just takes care of the repetitive task of sorting through millions of data, allowing experts to spend far more time protecting India’s incredible wildlife.
Protecting nature
“So, nobody actually walks around asking the tigers to stand in a line?”
“No”, I said. “Fortunately for everyone involved.”
As our conversation ended, I realized how wonderful it is that some of the world’s most advanced technologies – like artificial intelligence – are being used not to replace nature, but to understand and protect it; that we should remember that behind every number lies an extraordinary partnership between dedicated people, clever technology and our striped friend who would much rather remain unseen.
Perhaps, this is exactly how the tiger likes it.
