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winter 2010

nature conservation foundation newsletter

Red fox, (Vulpes vulpes), belongs to the

genus Vulpes, of the Canidae family. The

members of this genus are referred to as

true foxes. The largest of the true foxes,

the red fox is found across the entire

northern hemisphere and is the most

common member of the order Carnivora.

Most of us know the story of the

fox and the crow where the cunning fox

outwits the crow and deprives the poor

bird of the piece of cheese. Several of our

eld staff have strories of foxes stealing

myriad things including soap cases,

butter, tea, meat and leather wallets from

eld camps. In one instance, there was aconstant ght between two camp-mates

over who drank the milk kept aside

for the morning tea, until the day the

culprit was discovered to be a red fox!

In the cold deserts of Spiti, the

red fox shares the rugged mountains with

a majestic predator; the snow leopard. In

north America, cougars are known to kill

red fox. I have often wondered if similar

interactions would exist between the fox

and the snow leopards. Red foxes wouldobviously avoid a physical confrontation

with the larger snow leopard. Nonethe-

less, they have to share the same habi-

tat and some amount of interaction is

M O Anand

To many of us, nature conservation is

really an inconvenience. Conservation

imposes direct economic costs most

of which are borne by the people who

live closest to the natural resource

being conserved. In contrast, most of

the benets of conservation are ratherintangible, rarely feature in matters of

economics, and are enjoyed by people

who live far away and bear none of the

burdens of conservation. This dichotomy

is one of the most important challenges

to conservation, both philosophically

and practically. Two prominent attempts

to better-distribute the economic

costs and benets of conservation are:

payments for biodiversity-friendly

landuse, and for ecosystem services.At some level, the overlap

between the conservation requirements

for biodiversity and ecosystem services

is rather obvious. For years we have

accepted that the forests that house our

remarkable biodiversity are also vital for

providing us water and buffering us from

climate change. But a more ne-tuned

understanding of the ecosystem processes

that link biodiversity, ecosystem services

and their changing environment toone-another is still poorly developed.

Developing such an understanding is

the main focus of my research. I work in

The super cunning fox

Carbonstorage infragmentedforests

bushchat

inevitable. Our camera-traps in Spiti have

revealed several instances of snow leopards

and fox passing by the same site within

hours of each other. Snow leopards mark

their territories through scrapes, scent

marks and defecation at prominent places.

Marking is like putting up a signboard

claiming ownership of a property and

signaling your presence in the area.

I wondered if it was difcult for

the fox to eke out a living under the

constant shadow of the snow leopard,

until I came across this sequence of

photographs, which caught the fox red-

handed in its fabled act of being cunningand smart. A snow leopard had deposited

a scat on a prominent ridgeline and gone

away. Six days later a fox visited the same

spot and deposited its poop bang on snow

leopard poop, effectively replacing the

large cats signboard with its own. From

the sequence of camera trap photographs,

it does look like a deliberate act.

So with just one smart move, the

fox had outwitted snow leopard as well as

the researcher who might spend monthsanalyzing scats in a laboratory only to

realize that not all of them belonged to his

study species; the snow leopard.n

see camera-trap photos on page 2&3 contd on page 2

Rishi Kumar


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rg, which is important not only as

as coee capital, but as an area o

and unique biodiversity. In addition

ast orested tracts along the districts

ders, the landscape is dotted with

dreds o small rainorest patches,

h rarely more than a ew dozen acres,

ch have been spared conversion to

ee plantations or rice felds 50-

years ago because they are sacred.

hough these orests may appear

tine to the casual observer, the truth

at years o isolation, compounded

equent use by people have made

physical structure and species

position o the tree stands within

e ragments somewhat dierent

m un-ragmented orests. In these

ments I am trying to understand

habitat ragmentation whichuite widespread across all tropical

sts aects tree communities,

consequently the carbon storage

ystem service provided by them.

I was ortunate to work with

ry competent and dedicated team

prising three local students. A

feld botanist colleagues too spent

tantial time with us in the feld,

ing setup the study and identiy

s.

Vegetation plots ormed the

amental units o this study. Here, we

ld mark a square o 25m side, within

which we would locate all trees above

a certain minimum size, identiy their

species, and measure their girth and

height. These bits o inormation were

then used in an allometric equation,

which estimates o the biomass within

each tree. Numerous such plots, located

in ragmented and un-ragmented

orests and compared by various

statistical methods begin to throw some

light on the ate o tree communities

and carbon stocks in ragmented orests.

Preliminary results contain

both good and bad news. I observed

that overall carbon stocks did not seem

to vary too greatly rom un-ragmented

to ragmented orests in our study sites.

Fragments, however, had a highly

depleted crop o young trees, suggesting

poor regeneration. One would expect

that as these ragments aged and the

standing large trees died, there would

not be many to take their place, thus

endangering the uture o carbon

storage in these ragments. In the

coming months, my research will ocus

on developing a better understanding

o the ecological processes that

bring about these patterns. Such an

understanding is important in the

context o planning strategies or

the conservation o biodiversity and

ecosystem services.n

Photographs of the super cunning foxImages for article on page 1

This sequence: A snow leopard marking a site through defecation followed by a fox that defecates right on the snow leopards scat.


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TO

natureconservation

foundation

Design [email protected]

Send us feedback and suggestions at

3076/5, 4th Cross, Gokulam ParkMysore 570002, INDIA

T +91.821.2515601

F +91.821.2513822

E [email protected]

www.conservation.in

Vaibhav Chaturvedi I have a masters degree in

Environment Management from the School of

Studies in Environment Management; Vikram

University in my home town Ujjain where I also

used to run a student organization for conservationcalled Srishti. In 2010, I joined NCBS as a student

trainee to familiarize myself with techniques in

conservation genetics. During this time I started

working on snow leopard samples from Himachal

Pradesh collected by NCF and subsequently

joined the High Altitude Program in September

2010. My current work involves analysis of the

genetic data and individual identication of

wild snow leopards using non-invasive genetic samples. My long term interests lie in

population, behavioral and spatial ecology of large carnivores (especially vulnerable

populations in fragmented habitats) and their conservation in India.

Sujatha Ramesh I have a Masters degree in

Psychology and have worked with an organization

for with differently-abled children in Mysore and

later as a soft skills facilitator in an IT company.

Living in Valparai and Munnar for

nearly 15 years before coming to Mysore (for

my childrens education) was an experience thatwill be hard to forget. Encounters with wild life

at close proximity was something that happened

almost daily which I really miss. I have now

joined NCF as an Executive Assistant in the

Western Ghats programme.Nachiket Kelkar Currently I am a research

afliate with the Oceans and Coasts programme

at NCF, and am based in the Lakshadweep

Islands, studying coral reef and seagrass shes,

green turtles, and surveying reef bleaching. For

my M.Sc. in Wildlife Biology and Conservation

(at NCBS-WCS) I studied the ecology ofGanges river dolphins in relation to sheries,

in a human-dominated riverscape in Bihar,

and continue working with local conservation

teams there. Recently, I was part of a project

funded by the Conservation Leadership

Program, U.K. on effectiveness of protected

areas in conserving freshwater sh species

in the southern Western Ghats. I have been

involved in research on riverine and estuarine

sh communities, Irrawaddy dolphins, spiders,

moths, plants, dry-land agriculture, wetland and

grassland management and urban biodiversity.

My current interest is in studying conict,

conservation and coexistence of wild species

and humans, in the aquatic realm. Other

interests include spatial ecology of animal

populations and communities, population

ecology and estimation, freshwater and marine

ecology, Bayesian statistics, conservation

planning, sheries and agricultural systems,

natural history, eld geology, economics,

writing, poetry and literature.

Nisarg Prakash I completed Bachelors degree in

biotech engineering, although I never wanted

to be an engineer. I then worked with Nityata

Foundation for two years and eld work exposed

me to Bandipur, Coorg and Periyar. Ive recently

(nally!) completed a Masters in WildlifeBiology and Conservation from NCBS-WCS.

For my dissertation, I studied the effect of land-

use on occupancy and habitat-use of otters in

the Anamalais. Some of my current interests

are rainforests, modied landscapes, streams and

rivers, hornbills, and small carnivores.

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