The Anaimalai Wildlife Sanctuary near Pollachi is home to wildlife like Leopards, Elephants, Lion Tailed macaque and many other flora and fauna. Every six months a wildlife census is conducted to monitor the movement of the wild animals in the forests. The wildlife census for the winter has begun yesterday.
More than 130 volunteers and forest department officials are involved in this wildlife census that began at 6 am, yesterday. In the Pollachi forest range, Ravichandran lead the census works in Pothamadai, Sethumadai and Alaiyar forest ranges.
On the first three days of this six day exercise, data will be collected on the carnivores and in the next three days data on herbivores will be collected. The forest department officials said that the data will be collected on the basis of the distance of the droppings of the wild animals from the guide line.
Data will also be collected from the pug marks, droppings and nail marks. Data on vultures in this forest will also be collected. As there have been no rains in the past two years, it has been reported that the animals have moved away from these forests. However, lack of any sighting of wild animals has left the volunteers disappointed.