Research overview: camera-trap monitoring and tiger population science

Camera trapping has revolutionized how tiger populations are counted and studied. This overview synthesizes the methods built on individual stripe identification and capture-recapture statistics, including spatially explicit models that estimate density while accounting for animals moving across survey boundaries. It reviews how survey design, trap spacing, and sampling duration affect the precision of estimates, how occupancy modeling extends monitoring to landscapes too large for full camera arrays, and how repeated surveys detect trends. The synthesis explains why rigorous, statistically grounded monitoring replaced earlier index methods and how it now guides reserve management and global tiger recovery goals. For enthusiasts it demystifies the population figures reported for tiger reserves, showing that behind each number lies a structured survey and a statistical framework designed to handle the imperfect detection of an elusive, wide-ranging cat.