More about Girish

Girish is an alumnus of the post-graduate program in wildlife biology & conservation, run by the Wildlife Conservation Society-India and National Centre for Biological Sciences. He studied Indian foxes for his Masters dissertation, under the guidance of Dr. Ravi Chellam and Dr. Abi Tamim Vanak and examined how this small canid selects den-sites in a fragmented grassland landscape.

Girish’s interest in wildlife sciences remained latent until he visited Ranthambore in 2006. There he stayed with forest personnel and understood how hard life was at the frontline and the complex issues conservation involves. He continued visiting protected areas across India for the next four years and learning immensely from interactions with peers, researchers, and conservationists as part of his Masters degree.

Immediately after the Masters course, Girish joined Dr. Advait Edgaonkar on a project funded by CEPF-ATREE (http://www.atree.org/cepf_small_grants) to examine large carnivore occupancy in the northern Western Ghats. This project revealed fascinating insights about how large carnivores persist at landscape scales.

This was followed by short surveys in Intanki national park in Nagaland, monitoring a GPS-collared tigress in Umred-Karhandla in Central Maharashtra, and population surveys for herbivores and stray dogs in Sanjay Gandhi national park in Mumbai. He worked with Dr. Vidya Athreya from WCS-India on an Indo-Norwegian collaborative project (http://www.nina.no/ninaenglish/Researchprojects/IPBES.aspx) and conducted short camera trapping surveys for wildlife outside protected areas in Rajasthan and Western Ghats.

Girish is presently working with the Wildlife Research & Conservation Society and The Nityata Foundation in the Sahyadri-Konkan region of the Western Ghats on a project examining large carnivore connectivity, funded by CEPF-ATREE (http://indiabiodiversity.org/project/show/74). He is also associated with Researchers for Wildlife Conservation, formed of a subset of the alumni from the Masters Program, that strives to voice views and provide solutions on diverse conservation issues.