The forest department has asked the Wildlife Institute of India (WWI) to adopt advanced census-taking techniques to find the exact number of tigers in the state, Chief Wildlife Conservator S Kumar said here today.
The unofficial estimates of the tiger population in India is as low as 1,411. However, the estimate was arrived at following a census in 17 states which have tiger reserves.
"The census did not include states like Meghalaya. As per the 2002 census, the state has around 47 tigers," Kumar said.
In the North-East, only Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Assam were covered during the census conducted by the WWI in 2008.