“Wild animals can save themselves from extinction and they can survive in human-dominated landscapes by changing the way they use the available habitat.” This has been the finding of a team of scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (India Programme).
The research on the phenomenon has been conducted in association with the Centre for Wildlife Studies, Centre for Ecological Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science and Manipal University.
Researchers examined how blackbucks – a near-threatened species – began using habitats that were characterised by seasonally changing resources, threat from predators, intensive human pressures, even more so, conversion of habitats by humans. The study, published in a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal, Plos One, on March 17, was conducted in the Great Indian Bustard Sanctuary, Solapur, Maharashtra.
It found that when blackbucks moved into high-risk areas, the presence of small sanctuaries or ‘refuges’ in landscapes dominated by humans enabled them to survive and forage.
The finding proves that it is possible for wildlife and humans to co-exist peacefully, provided the former is offered refuges like the small protected areas that constitute the Great Indian Bustard Sanctuary.
The sanctuary is a protected grassland, surrounded by fragments of unprotected grassland patches and agricultural lands and characterised by intensive human pressure and presence of natural predators such as the Indian wolf.
The researchers found that blackbucks preferred to stay in the safety of the sanctuary when food was abundant, to avoid the risks associated with humans and livestock.
But, as food became scarce after monsoon, blackbucks began to move into riskier unprotected grasslands, thus responding dynamically to seasonally changing levels of food and risks in the landscape.
The authors observed that as blackbucks made seasonal changes in movements in their desperate search for food, they ventured into risky areas outside the sanctuary.
The study, conducted by Chaitanya Krishna, Ajith Kumar and Kavita Isvaran, was funded by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change and the Royal Norwegian Embassy in New Delhi.
Scientists prove that wild animals can save themselves from extinction by changing the way they use the available habitat
