The Tiger Census Works Because Tigers Are Territorial
A tiger patrols a defined home range and leaves behind a signature: paw prints, scrape marks, scent sprays, and above all, a face that camera traps read with the same logic as a fingerprint. India's camera-trap grid now covers more than 141 tiger reserves and produces individual ID matches at scale. The 2022 census counted 3,167 tigers with a confidence interval narrow enough to call it a real number.
