Forest officials hope that the number of tigers in the reserve would have increased this year in tune with the trend for the past few years. "Pug marks were spotted at some places, though there were no direct sightings,'' said M Krishanaswamy, Valparai forest ranger. But forest officials have chosen to keep the tiger count under wraps to curb poaching incidents.

The census teams comprising environmentalists, volunteers from NGOs, students, forest staff and anti - poaching squad personnel would be estimating the number of tigers using line transect method. Pug marks, animal scat and direct sightings by volunteers and forest staff would be collated at the end of the six day census exercise to arrive at the number of tigers in the 938 sqkm tiger reserve.

Forest officials said that in addition to tigers, the census teams would also enumerate their prey base and other animals like elephants, leopards, Indian gaur and deer. ``A group of students from AVC College of Engineering have joined the census this year to study the extent of canopy cover,'' said Manampalli forest ranger K Arivoli who is coordinating the census teams in his range. The students would count species and number of trees, plants, shrubs and weeds in a particular radius in the forest.

Forest officials said that in all, 82 teams comprising more than 200 people, have joined the census this year. They would be covering Amaravathy, Udumalpet, Pollachi, Valparai, Manampalli and Valparai ranges. They have been equipped with compass, Global Positioning System (GPS) and range finders.

"There are 12 transect lines in each range. The census team would take each line and look for animals on either side of it,'' said a forest official.

A senior forest officer said that in addition to the national tiger census, field directors of tiger reserves can commission a census during any period of the year. While ATR holds the census exercise during December every year, Sathyamangalam and Mudumalai tiger reserves also conduct similar census regularly, he said.