FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Tech

A Tiger Stripe Database Is Tracking India's Killer Cats

Identifying "problem" tigers and relocating them can save lives.
​Image: Ullas Karanth / Wildlife Conservation Society

Where human civilization and wildlife meet, violence can erupt. Identifying the animals involved in a conflict can be tricky, but pattern-matching software can help.

Indian tigers living in conservation areas near human settlements are prone to violent altercations with humans and livestock. It is, after all, their turf. When villagers lose some cattle to a tiger attack, or, as is all too often the case, a member of their community, conservationists are faced with a choice: either move the tiger or the people. They usually opt for the former, transferring so-called "problem tigers" to other conservation areas or zoos.

Advertisement

The first step to relocating a tiger is identifying it, and researchers working with the Wildlife Conservation Society in India have turned to cameras, software, and databases for assistance.

Tiger-finding starts long before a tiger actually needs to be found. A database first needs to be built. To do this, researchers set up camera traps inside tiger conservation areas and photograph as many tigers as they can. They then analyze each tiger's stripes using imaging software, storing their unique patterns in a database in order to identify them as individuals.

Image: Ullas Karanth / Wildlife Conservation Society

When a tiger stalking a particular area needs to be found, camera traps are set up around the perimeter. After a period of time, researchers analyze the stripes of the photographed tigers. If, for example, a tiger is featured prominently in the photos and is known to reside in a far away region (thanks to the database), conservationists can safely assumed that it's the culprit and capture it.

According to a new paper, published in the latest issue of Oryx, 750 individual Indian tigers have been identified and stored in a database using camera traps and software.

The software, first described in a 2009 paper, uses a computer grid model of a tiger's body to map the unique stripe patterns of tigers captured on film. The grid maps over a photographed tiger and an algorithm morphs it to fit the body. The tiger's stripes are then catalogued and stored in a database for future reference. Pelts confiscated from poachers have been matched to killed tigers using this method, and now it's being used to identify live ones.

When humans and animals are forced live together, a tense relationship characterized by violence and mistrust can form. For the humans and tigers of India, technology has emerged as an unlikely mediator.