WII Technical Reports/Books/Manuals
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Item Identification of human-leopard hotspot the prioritizing the mitigation measures in Junnar Forest Division, Pune, Maharashtra(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2020) Habib, B.; Khandekar, V.; Nigam, P.; Mondol, S.; Jayaramegowda, R.; Ghanekar, R.; Kumar, A.Mitigation of human-carnivore conflict became a priority to wildlife managers for the conservation of large carnivores and human livelihood. Hence, for the effective mitigation measure, it is necessary to identify the priority human-carnivore conflict hotspots. In India, the growing human population, infrastructure development, and land modification are affecting the large carnivore population leading to human carnivore conflict. Among human-carnivore conflict, human-leopard conflict is common in different geographical regions due to the adaptability of species across a different environmental gradient in India. Human-leopard conflict records of 20 years (1999-2018) were collected from the different ranges of the Junnar Forest Department (JFD) in the Pune district. The area is known for the human-leopard conflict for the past three decades. The records show an abrupt surge of human-leopard conflict after the year 2014. Using these records, spatio-temporal clusters of the hot spots and cold spots were identified using optimized hotspot analysis tool in ArcGIS. Also, five different categories of hot spots in the study area namely, new hot spots, consecutive hot spots and sporadic hot spots of human-leopard conflict through emerging hot spot analysis in ArcGIS were identified. It is suggested that different management approaches and strategies focusing on the different categories of hotspots are required to deal with human-leopard conflict for effective mitigation measures. Villages have been highlighted as the new conflict hotspots i.e. which has emerged in recent years. Immediate actions like intensive night patrolling and awareness in the villages to control will help in reducing human leopard conflict.Item Capacity building initiative on the dispersal and ranging patterns of elephants for effective management of human-elephant interactions(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2022) Nigam, P.; Pandav, B.; Mondol, S.; Lakshmiarayanan, N.; Kumar, A.; Nandwanshi, V.B.; Das, J.; Biswas, S.; Udhayaraj, A.D.; Vishwakarma, R.; Habib, B.; Miachieo, K.; Narasingh Rao, P.V.Wild Asian elephant (Elephas maximus) populations are distributed in four major regions namely North West, North-East, East-Central and Southern regional meta-populations across India. Amongst them, the East-central regional population spread across the States of Odisha, Jharkhand, southern West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, and lately in Madhya Pradesh suffers disproportionately high levels of human elephant conflict. Among the myriad challenges facing management of human-elephant conflict in the region, elephant range expansion into new areas is overriding. One such range expansion that resulted in acute human-elephant conflict is being witnessed in the State of Chhattisgarh. Although northern Chhattisgarh was historically an elephant range, elephants reportedly disappeared during the period 1920 to late 1980s. While episodes of sporadic elephant occurrence in Chhattisgarh was reported during the period 1988- 1993, contemporary range expansion and concomitant human-elephant conflict began from the year 2000, and has accelerated during the last one decade. Faced with an enormous challenge of managing human-elephant conflict that is spatiotemporally dynamic unlike that of other elephant range States, constrained by limited Institutional capacities to assess and deal with the issue. Chhattisgarh Forest Department has been trying diversity its conflict mitigation strategies. Recognizing the need to objectively evaluate human-elephant conflict situation in the State, during the year 2017 Chhattisgarh Forest Department invited Wildlife Institute of India to conduct ecological research on elephants in Chhattisgarh with a three-year budget outlay. The project was a collaborative effort between Chhattisgarh Forest Department and WII. Considering the scope of the project, the project duration was further extended and eventually, the project lasted for the period July 2017 to March 2022. Being the final project report, the activities carried out as part of the project is summarized as under. Distribution and Demography In Chhattisgarh, the elephant distribution during the period 2012 to 2017 was reported from 16 Forest Divisions and four Protected Areas in the north and north-central regions of the state. The elephant population, as enumerated by Chhattisgarh Forest Department during 2021 , ranged from 250 to 300. The adult sex ratio recorded during the study was 1: 4.5. About 44% of the female segment of the population comprised of adults. Chhattisgarh elephant population is presently contiguous with other elephant populations in the neighboring states i.e., Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and in Odisha occurring as a meta-population 1 and thus cannot be considered as an isolated population. However, within Chhattisgarh, the population is relatively small and it occurs scattered over a large area as small and disjunctive groups facing a perpetual risk of getting isolated by ongoing linear infrastructure and other associated developmental activities in the State. If such groups get isolated, then they will not be viable in the long run. 1 Meta-population: Population of small populations that are connected through dispersals 1 O. ~ . -~ 1 -WU.d.U.fe .In.s-titu-te. o.f .In.di a Home Range, Movement Patterns & Dispersal, and Habitat Selection by Elephants During the period 2018-2022, WII-CGFD collaborative effort resulted in 10 elephant radio collaring in Chhattisgarh. The resultant effort provided 3106 elephant days of tracking information. Each of the radiocollared elephants provided an average of 310.6 (± 273) days of tracking data. As on 31 51 March 2022 when WII-CGFD collaborative project ended, two of the collared elephants (SD - Sehradev and MT - Maitri) were having functional collars. The estimated average home range (95% minimum convex polygon) of elephants in Chhattisgarh was 3172.8 km2 (± 2002.2 km2, Range: 462.3 - 6969.7 km2). The 95% kernel density home ranges of elephants were much lower averaging 512.3 km2 (± 235.3 km2, Range: 126.5 - 748.9 km2). The elephant home ranges were not wholly well defined, and marked by inter-annual shifts caused by exploratory behaviour. The elephant home ranges were relatively large. The dry season home ranges were significantly lower than monsoon and winter ranges. However, dry season home ranges of elephants are larger. The present study indicates that habitat quality in some of the forest patches - particularly those that are large and contiguous with minimal of human interference can potentially support elephants in the landscape. Thus, dry season ranges of elephants could serve as a surrogate for habitat quality. Monthly variations in home ranges were significant, and best explained by idiosyncrasies of individual elephants. Among the forest types open, moderately dense and very dense forests classified by Forest Survey of India based on crown densities, elephants selected open forests, that were predominantly juxtaposed with human-use areas. Although the crown density was low, the patches of open forests support dense stands of Sal (Shorea robusta) coppice with rank undergrowth offering adequate cover for elephants. Elephant habitat selection of these open forest patches appears to be influenced by potential foraging opportunities in human-use areas, and further facilitated by low inter-patch distance. Genetic Structure of Elephants Using 258 genetic samples collected from 9 Forest Divisions, elephant genetic structure in northern Chhattisgarh was evaluated. Analysis indicates that at least two different elephant lineages occur in Chhattisgarh. This implies that elephants occurring in Chhattisgarh have possibly come from different areas. Within the two different lineages, high relatedness amongst the individuals was observed corroborating with the general social structure of Asian elephant clans where individuals are mostly related. Crop Losses and Human Fatalities due to Elephants Crop losses caused by elephants were acute and widespread in Chhattisgarh. To draw an analogy, Karnataka's ex gratia payment towards crop losses by elephants during the period 2015-2020 was comparable with Chhattisgarh, although the former's elephant population is 93% more than the latter. The landscape-level assessment covering the whole of northern Chhattisgarh, and fine-scale assessment covering select areas in Surguja circle identified correlates of crop losses at both spatial scales. Elephant-related human deaths were widespread in the state. However, nearly 70% of incidences occurred in areas of high intensity of habitat-use by elephants. The human fatalities due to elephants were both temporally and spatially auto-correlated. 2Item Preliminary assessment of tigers, co-predators and prey in Pranhita Wildlife Sanctuary, Maharashtra, India for exploring options for conservation translocation(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2020) Habib, B.; Nigam, P.; Joshi, K.; Panwar, P.As part of the project “Preliminary assessment of tigers, co-predators and prey species in Pranhita Wildlife Sanctuary, Maharashtra, India for exploring options for conservation translocation”, the study was carried out in Pranhita Wildlife Sanctuary in Gadchiroli district of Maharashtra. The fieldwork was carried from January 2019 to June 2019 covering an area of 418.85 km2 in southern Gadchiroli. The Eastern Vidarbha Landscape (EVL) holds a high density of carnivores both inside and outside protected areas leading to an increase in human-wildlife interactions. Pranhita Wildlife Sanctuary (PWLS) is a part of EVL and could be an important corridor. To explore new habitats for carnivore species, we conducted a preliminary assessment of tigers, co-predators, and prey in PWLS. The sanctuary mainly is dominated by Southern Tropical Dry Deciduous forest. We conducted carnivore and ungulate sign surveys and deployed camera traps (n=25) in 40 km2 area in Bahmni range. The area was divided into different 1.42 × 1.42 km2 grids and at least one pair of camera trap was placed in each 2.0164 km2 grid at 20 sites and operated for 24-27 days in Bahmni range. Apart from that random camera traps were placed at 5 sites in Kamlapur and Pranhita ranges for 1 to 7 days during the study period. The camera traps sampling effort was 1030 trap nights and around 33000 images were captured. For prey species density estimation, 24 line transects of 2 km length were walked in 43 beats with 5-7 replicates. For vegetation quantification, we laid a total of 144 circular plots of a 10-meter radius and recorded 43 trees, 37 shrubs, and 13 grass species. We used both spatial and temporal data for occupancy estimation. Data were analyzed using the software Presence for occupancy estimation and Distance 7.2 for density estimation. A total of 10 carnivore species were recorded directly or indirectly during the study period. According to the IUCN Red List of threatened species, 2 are Endangered and Near Threatened, and 2 are vulnerable. The major carnivore species are leopard, Asiatic wild dog, sloth bear, Indian grey wolf, jungle cat, Indian fox, and rusty-spotted cat. The occupancy estimate (ψ) of leopard in the null model was 0.20 while for other carnivore species like sloth bear, jungle cat and wild dog were 0.70, 0.74, and 0.68 percent respectively. A total of 14 prey species were recorded during the line transect and sign survey. The major prey species are sambar, Indian gaur, chousingha, Indian giant squirrel, chital, wild pig, nilgai, barking deer, langur sp., rhesus macaque, and Indian peafowl. Among these, 3 species are listed as Vulnerable and 1 as Near Threatened by IUCN Red List. Overall density estimation of major ungulate species was 14.82/km2. The encounter rate of cattle was 0.17/km, nilgai 0.039/km, chital 0.059/km, chousingha 0.016/km, and wild pig 0.022/km. Individual density estimate of major ungulate species like chital 2.27/km2, wild pig 11.55/km2, nilgai 0.72/km2, langur 0.55/km2, Indian hare 1.78/km2, peafowl 0.44/km2, grey jungle fowl 1.87/km2, chousingha 0.28/km2 and cattle were 28.61/km2. Occupancy estimate of ungulate species like sambar 0.27%, chital 0.44%, chousingha 0.51%, Indian gaur 0.07% and nilgai were 0.59%. The major threats in the sanctuary areas are hunting for local consumption, tree cutting, livestock grazing, forest fire, roadkill, and electrocution. We have got 28 % usable images of cattle grazing and 4 % of hunting. Other administrative lacunas are impractical beat boundaries, unequipped frontline staff, lack of legal action against the guilty, inadequate infrastructure, lack of training and capacity building. There is a consistent trepidation of left-wing extremism in the minds of locals and forest officials. It prevents or demotivates them from working efficiently in the PWLS. These activities directly or indirectly affect wildlife conservation and management in PWLS. This was the first-ever scientific study conducted to document prey and predator presence in PWLS. Further detailed and long-term studies are required for a better understanding of species ecology and their habitat. Such studies will help not only in better management and conservation of species in the area but also in decision-making on conservation translocations. Based on the preliminary study and SWOT analysis following are measures to be taken before translocation of any large carnivore species to Pranhita Wildlife Sanctuary: 1. Capacity building of local staff for effective wildlife management.2. Enhancement of protection measures in the Sanctuary to reduce poaching, hunting, and other illegal activities. 3. Habitat improvement by grassland management and eradication of lantana and other invasive species. 4. Reducing threats due to electrocution by illegal power fences used for local hunting and protection of crop fields by local farmers. 5. Special forest protection force for Gadchiroli considering extremism issues.6. Augmentation of the prey base to enhance fast recovery of prey species.7. Maintaining full-strength dedicated forest staff across all range offices of the division.8. Building infrastructure such as patrolling roads, forest chowkis etc., across the sanctuary.9. Involving local people in conservation measures across the sanctuary.10. Establishment of local ecodevelopment committees. 11. Wildlife-oriented management across the Gadchiroli forest division.12. The special financial package for Gadchiroli for enhancing wildlife-oriented management.13. Mitigation measures on the existing roads through the sanctuary and other critical wildlife corridors across the division.14. Implementation of Shyamaprasad Mukherjee Jan Van Vikas Scheme for development of villages across the forested landscape of Gadchiroli to achieve sustainable development of these villages and reduce the man-animal conflict.15. Identification of potential areas within the district for designation as Sanctuary, National Park, Conservation Reserve, Community Reserve.Item Patterns of Human-Wildlife Conflict in Chandrapur, Maharashtra, India(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2022) Habib, B.; Nigam, P.; Praveen, N.R.; Ravindran, A.Human-wildlife conflict (HWC) is the negative interaction between human or human property and wildlife and is a growing cause for concern among conservationists and scientists globally. Although HWC is a global phenomenon, there are certain differences in its manifestation as well as magnitude in developed versus developing nations. Developed regions of the world exhibit lower levels of direct dependence on forest ecosystems and their resources, as well as exclusionary management of the wildlife habitats. India, being a developing nation, is witness to an increasing intensity of human-carnivore conflict due to the fast-shrinking percentage of forest cover, that act as natural habitats of many carnivore species, due to a combination of factors including human population explosion, agricultural expansion, and large-scale developmental activities, leading to fragmentation and destruction of forest cover all across the country. The Central Indian Landscape (CIL) is one of the regions of high tiger populations and density in India with 6 Tiger Reserves featuring heavily as source populations, including Tadoba Andhari, Pench, Kanha, Satpura, and Melghat Tiger Reserves. But there is a disproportionate decline in forest cover as well as quality, which means that even though the populations of large carnivores are thriving, there isn’t enough pristine forest to support their growing numbers. This eventually leads to a spill-over of the carnivores into surrounding human-dominated landscapes (HDL). This acts as one of the major reasons for the burgeoning number of conflict cases between humans and large carnivores. The Vidarbha Landscape (VL) of the state of Maharashtra is facing a similar decline in forest cover leading to an increase in conflict cases. Records of conflict incidents were collected from the Greater Tadoba Landscape (GTL) which covers the divisions of Brahmapuri, Chandrapur & Central Chanda, along with the Tadoba Andhari Tiger Reserve (TATR), in the Chandrapur Circle. Using these records, hotspots of livestock depredation and attacks on humans were mapped using a hotspot analysis tool in ArcGIS. Various scientific and non-scientific methods continue to be tested to slow down the increasing rate of HWC across the world. One of the major hurdles in the implementation of a universal mitigation method to curb the number and impact of HWC is the heavy influence of local factors including topography, vegetation, and human demography of the region. This requires an intensive study of the patterns and causes of conflict in a given region. Studying conflict hotspots and understanding the emerging spatial and temporal patterns is a quintessential step in the process of mitigating the HWC of any landscape. An important step in that direction is the establishment of a comprehensive database, which can be used for trend analysis and predictions. The hot spot analysis of human-carnivore conflict for tigers, leopards, and sloth bears enables visualization of the spatial distribution of events of attacks on humans as well as livestock depredation by each species, hence aiding in the development of site-specific management strategies to mitigate the effects of human-carnivore conflictItem Status of Tigers, Co-Predator and Prey in Tipeshwar Wildlife Sanctuary 2021(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, Maharashtra Forest Department, 2022) Habib, B.; Nigam, P.; Banerjee, J.; Puranik, S.; Jagtap, K.; Koley, S.Phase IV monitoring for the Tipeshwar Wildlife sanctuary was conducted from March –April (2021) as part of the project “Long Term Monitoring of Tigers, Co-Predators and Prey species in Vidarbha Landscape, Maharashtra, India”. The exercise aimed to cover an area of 148.63 km2 of the entire sanctuary. The objective of Phase IV Monitoring is to estimate the minimum number of tigers in the Tipeshwar WLS using Spatially-Explicit-Capture-Recapture Sampling and density estimation of prey base using Distance Sampling. 62 pairs of camera traps were placed in the forested area of Tipeshwar WLS following a sampling grid of 2 sq. km. in one block. The camera traps were active for 30 days yielding a sampling effort of 2206 trap nights of data which is used for further analysis. Tiger density per 100 km. sq. based on the Spatially Explicit Capture-Recapture (SECR) model was 7.07 (SE ± 0.218) in the sanctuary while that of leopards based on the same method was 3.86 (SE ±0.165). To estimate prey density, 13 line-transects were laid randomly all over the division and were sampled 7 times during the sampling period, with a total walking effort of 182 km was invested. The observations include chital (Axis axis), sambar (Rusa unicolor), nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus), chousingha (Tetracerus quadricornis), langur (Semnopithecus sp), wild boar (Sus scrofa), chinkara (Gazella bennetii), Blackbuck (Antilope cervicapra), Indian hare (Lepus nigricollis) and peafowl (Pavo cristatus). As per the observations, Nilgai (n=50) is the most observed species followed by Chital (n=27). The overall prey density of Tipeshwar WLS is 17.82 (SE± 3.81). Due to low number of observations densities of chousingha, chinkara, blackbuck, langur, Indian hare, peafowl, sambar, wild boar could not be estimated. To study the activity, we used the camera trap images. The times recorded on camera trap photos provide information on the period during the day that a species is most active. Species active at the same periods may interact as predator and prey, or as competitors. Sensors that record active animals (e.g. camera traps) build up a record of the distribution of activity over the day. Records are more frequent when animals are more active and less frequent or absent when animals are inactive. The area under the distribution of records thus contains information on the overall level of activity in a sampled population.Item Assessing the physiological stress in gaur (Bos gaurus gaurus) during translocation: Final Project Report.(Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, 2024) Farooqui, H.N.; Rajput, N.,; Jawre, S.; Vishwakarma, R.; Bhandari, B.; Habib, B.; Krishnamoorthy, L.; Dubey, A.; Om, H.; Sengar, A.; Nigam, ParagTo assess the impact of capture and translocation on animals, it becomes imperative to study the associated risks and possible negative effects, if any. These effects can be determined by evaluating physical, physiological and behavioural effects on animals at the time of capture,