their activities should be strictly monitored and they should trained well to make sure they do more good than harm during the census but as soon as he heard about the tiger census he put his job hunt on hold those with cameras and video equipment not allowed volunteers have to abide by forest and wildlife laws times view bangalore counting tigers deep in the jungles is an exotic hobby and certainly not just good fun forest officials said all volunteers have to sign a bond before they enter the forest stating the department is not responsible for any untoward incidents like animal attacks volunteers would be included in forest staff teams spread out in different beats in a particular forest range he said we cant sit at home just because such accidents take place he said though theres no age limit schoolchildren and the very old not allowed candidates with communicable diseases barred its heartening to see youngsters coming out in large numbers to be part of the tiger census animal lovers from bangalore have jumped at the chance to live on the wild side v karikalan deputy conservator of forests bnp said more volunteers might join in as census week approaches in bannerghatta national park bnp and surrounding divisions alone about 50 volunteers mostly techies have enrolled for the eightday sojourn like ranjith b s team head with a software firm in the city who has taken 10 days off work to volunteer with the national tiger census starting on december 16 as counting happens mostly during the mornings and evenings they do get breaks for lunch and dinner and can come out he said the number might go up in the coming days but well restrict the volunteers this time with the mananimal conflict in the past few months he said ive some job offers in hand but i cannot miss the big cat census which happens only once in four years he said we train volunteers before theyre sent in the field analyzing vegetation in respective forest tracts tree species shrub abundance invasive weeds studying human disturbance of tiger habitats loss of ground cover in forests whos eligible in a country which harbours a large proportion of the worlds tiger population its imperative that youngsters make sincere efforts to conserve these animals and their habitat applications pour in additional principal conservator of forests wildlife ajai misra said theyve received around 700 volunteer applications from different parts of karnataka were going to repeat it this time however karikalan said they cant promise accommodation and food during the term asked if he is undeterred by the recent attacks on humans in mysore that resulted in four deaths fasi said such things are like road accidents studying pugmarks and tiger scats sighting sambhars and nilgai and analyzing vegetation is serious business pranav j a bank employee recalls his stay inside a jungle near mysore during the last census the very idea of staying inside