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 in the Kanha-Pench and Terai-Arc landscapes — 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, letting rangers intercept intruders rather than only reviewing footage after the fact. 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; all four were remanded to judicial custody pending trial. A peer-reviewed BioScience study of the technology's early deployment in Kanha-Pench and Terai-Arc separately documented a poacher-gang arrest that followed detection of armed individuals moving along 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/false-negative rates, a rigorous before-after poaching-rate comparison, or an independent cost-effectiveness review.

Read the full analysis: https://www.thehansindia.com/news/national/ai-camera-helps-nab-four-poachers-in-similipal-1101741