The fundamental metric that we need for assessing and monitoring the status of threatened or endangered species is the population size, i.e., we are typically interested in finding out how many individuals of a species currently exist. Unfortunately, estimating these numbers is a daunting task because most endangered animals– especially those that live in dense tropical forests– are rare, secretive and elusive. For animals that have individual markings (like the stripes of a tiger, spots of a cheetah, rosettes of … Read More
Counting Dholes: A First For India
India hosts a wide diversity of carnivores in a relatively small fraction of the global land area. Unfortunately, a lot of these carnivores are at risk of extinction with barely any information on their populations, nor methods available to monitor them. The Asiatic wild dog or dhole (cuon alpinus) ranks among the most threatened carnivores in the world. Till date, monitoring their populations has proven to be a challenge because dholes do not have visible distinguishing features such as stripes … Read More
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