Vowing to work together for the greater good of wildlife conservation, WildTeam’s two-day Integrated Tiger Habitat Conservation workshop came to its closure on Monday at Cosmos Centre in the capital.

The two-day workshop, an exclusive collaboration between WildTeam and the Bangladesh Forest Department, Wildlife Trust of India, Jahangirnagar University, Dhaka University, Jagannath University, and Noakhali University of Science and Technology, turned into a rendezvous with the enthusiastic participation of a large number of aspiring wildlife researchers, educators and students.

Continuing the successful and effective series of sessions, the second day of the exclusive workshop began with the ‘Basics of Radio-telemetry for monitoring wildlife’ session which was conducted by Dr Rajiv Kalsi from 10 am to 10:45 pm, followed by his two other sessions - ‘Estimating densities using distance sampling’ from 11:00-11:30 am and ‘Use of Mark-Recapture for generating estimates’ from 11:30 am to 12:00 pm.

A group activity session was then conducted for the participants, from 12:00 pm to 1 pm by Dr Kamalka Bhattacharyyay alongside Dr Rajiv Kalsi.  After that, two virtual sessions were held following the lunch break: ‘Estimating and conserving the patterns of diversity using field survey data’ by Dr Md Anwar Hossain and ‘Human-Tiger Interactions’ by Dr Medha Nayak (from India). The later session comprised another activity: ‘List causes and drivers of Human Tiger Conflict in Sundarbans’.

Read more: WildTeam’s tiger conservation workshop begins at Cosmos Centre

The final session of the workshop was conducted by Prof M Abdul Aziz from Jahangirnagar University from 3 pm to 4:30 pm, titled ‘Camera trapping in the Sundarbans and demonstration’.

After a 15-minute post-training evaluation test for participants followed by another feedback session of the same duration, the workshop officially came to its closure with its closing ceremony and certificate distribution among the participants and the workshop conductors-associates. 

Chaired by WildTeam Founder and Cosmos Foundation Chairman Enayetullah Khan, the concluding session was moderated by Dr Md Anwarul Islam, CEO and spokesperson for WildTeam and also joined by WildTeam Chairman and renowned Ornithologist Enam Ul Haque, Deputy Managing Director of Cosmos Group Masud Khan, JU Professor M Abdul Aziz, innovative conservationist Noam Bedein and two of the workshop facilitators from Wildlife Trust India, Dr Kamalka Bhattacharyyay and Dr Rajiv Kalsi.

“When one stops to learn, the person stops to live - and it is as simple as that. We all have to die, today or tomorrow; but I think many people die much before their physical death when they lost the inspiration to learn. Personally, I am very happy to see all of you aspirant wildlife researchers here together and especially the participation of our female participants, as I believe the contribution of our female population to society is enormous,” Enayetullah Khan lauded the participants at the closing ceremony.

“I have seen WildTeam’s journey and struggles from its beginning,” Masud Khan said at the ceremony. “My father Enayetullah Khan, alongside Enam Ul Haque, Professor Anwarul Islam and the entire WildTeam has been working for effective conservation through struggles, efforts and sacrifices. I am very happy to explore this successful workshop, and I wish the best to all the participators-facilitators and the whole team.”

Lauding WildTeam for hosting this exclusive research workshop, Dr Rajiv Kalsi said, “Wildlife conservation is an urgency of our time. No government can do it alone, so I really appreciate Cosmos and WildTeam for this workshop.”

Echoing the same, Prof M A Aziz said, “I am very proud and happy to take part in this workshop. For effective conservation, we need biologists, we need environmentalists from you, the participants - and I think this workshop is helping towards achieving that.”

Representing the participants, Foisal Chowdhury Shorup, Wildlife biologist and Assistant Director of the Prime Minister's Office said: “In these two days, we have learned through discussion and new insights from our facilitators. On behalf of the participants, I would like to thank WildTeam for the opportunity and hospitality.” 

Closing the special workshop before handing over the certificates to the participants and facilitators, Enam Ul Haque said: “I have only one sentence for you, and I have borrowed it from somebody: ‘Be ashamed to die, before you make some contributions to the field of wildlife conservation’ - and I thank you all for participating in this workshop.”

The workshop featured a number of effective sessions on delivering adequate knowledge and skills necessary to plan, design and conduct successful wildlife research projects by covering a range of topics - including the principles of research design, field data collection techniques, data analysis, and report writing; along with providing the knowledge and guidelines to the participants with the latest tools and technologies used in wildlife research, including GPS tracking, remote sensing, and camera traps.

South Asia’s first fully digitalized private sector wire service and the country’s prominent news agency United News of Bangladesh was the Media Partner of this exclusive workshop.