She lies unmoving in the thicket, her bright orange and black stripes visible through the dense green foliage. As she raises her majestic head to give a lazy growl, the fascinated tourists sitting astride elephants click away furiously with their cameras.

This scene is fairly common at the Corbett Tiger Reserve, around 55 kms from here, where officials have taken care to ensure that the majestic tiger - unlike at other parks - does not fall victim to unscrupulous poachers.

At Corbett's Dhikala zone, however, the maximum tiger sightings are recorded.

When asked about instances of poaching in Corbett, Pant said the anti-poaching squads were always alert and on the lookout for any suspicious activity during their daily rounds. The squads kept track of tiger pug marks in their respective areas.

In 2001 there was a case of elephant poaching where six tuskers were killed and their ivory removed by the poachers, he said.

The park is to conduct its tiger census later this year. "The dates have not yet been decided," said Pant. The Project Tiger authorities would propose the dates, which could be in November.

Corbett Reserve has several anti-poaching squads in every zone, said Pant.

The 521-km Corbett National Park, located within the reserve, is divided into tourist zones like Dhikala, Bijrani, Sarpduli and Jhirna each of which has two anti-poaching squads. Each squad consists of an armed forest guard and four other men to accompany him.

There are 11 ranges or zones in Corbett, and an additional research range that does the census and maintains data on the wildlife, said Pant. The forest guards keep track of illegal felling of trees in the forest area, "suspicious activities" of people or of poaching activities, he said.

Created in 1936 as the country's first national park, it was named after well-known British hunter-turned conservationist Jim Corbett, also the author of several man eating tiger-hunting accounts. In 1973, the park became the first Tiger Reserve in India under Project Tiger.

Among the other animals at Corbett are the Asiatic elephants that number around 650, leopards, jungle cats, various deer species including the sambar, cheetal, hog deer, barking deer and nilgai.

There are also wild boars, sloth bears, civets, otters, over 580 species of resident and migratory birds, and reptiles like the gharial, crocodile, pythons and turtles.