TrailGuard AI at Similipal — Odisha's Forest Department Uses Edge-AI Cameras to Catch Poachers in a Melanistic-Tiger Reserve

Odisha's Forest Department has scaled up TrailGuard AI -- an edge-computing camera network originally piloted from 2022 by RESOLVE, the Global Tiger Forum and India's National Tiger Conservation Authority across five reserves -- into a 220-camera network inside Similipal Tiger Reserve, home to the world's best-known population of melanistic (black) tigers.

Each camera classifies motion-triggered images as human, animal or vehicle using an onboard AI model, and relays a match to a central control room in under 40 seconds. In July 2026, an alert from the network led Podadiha Wildlife Range staff to arrest four people carrying two country-made guns inside the reserve. A peer-reviewed BioScience study of the technology's earlier deployment separately documented a poacher-gang arrest following detection of armed individuals on trails tigers were later found to use.

The evidence base is still young: the BioScience study covered only the first few months of field use, and neither Odisha's Forest Department nor RESOLVE has published false-positive/negative rates, a rigorous before-after poaching-rate comparison, or an independent cost-effectiveness review.