Dean

Yadvendradev Jhala, Ph.D.
Dean
Phone: 0135-2646202
Email: jhalay [at] wii [dot] gov [dot] in
Wildlife has been my passion since my early childhood. I studied zoology for my bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Bombay. For my Ph.D. research at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, I used optimization to manage the conflicting habitat needs of two endangered species that interacted as prey (blackbuck) and predator (wolf). In 1991, I obtained a postdoctoral fellowship at the Smithsonian Institution and studied reproductive energetics using doubly labelled water. Later, I taught courses in wildlife conservation and management for the Smithsonian Institution in China, Tanzania, Malaysia, India and the U.S.A. I joined the Wildlife Institute of India in 1993 and have since pursued an active research programme on Indian carnivores. I have supervised research projects on the Indian wolf, striped hyaena, golden jackal, Indian fox, Asiatic lion and tiger using VHF, GPS, satellite and recapture telemetry. I supervise the Conservation Genetics Laboratory at WII. I teach Biometry and Population Ecology for the master’s course in wildlife science and Applied Population Ecology for the diploma programme in wildlife management. I continue to be a research associate of the Smithsonian Institution and a member of the IUCN SSC Specialist Group for Wolves and Canids.
Specialization
Population ecology; nutritional ecology; quantitative ecology; animal behaviour; conservation biology.
Current Projects
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Ecology of lions in the Greater Gir Landscape. |
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Research and conservation of threatened and endangered fauna of Kutch. |
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Ecology and monitoring of tigers in Kanha Tiger Reserve. |
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Ecology and population estimation of tigers in the Sunderbans. |
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Ecology and monitoring of Tigers in Ranthambore. |
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Monitoring the status of tigers, co-predators, prey and their habitat in India. |
Key Publications
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Jhala Y.V., R. Gopal & Q. Qureshi (2008). Status of the Tigers, Co-predators and Prey in India. National Tiger Conservation Authority, Government of India: New Delhi/Wildlife Institute of India: Dehradun. TR 08/001 pp-151. |
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Ishwaran K. & Y.V. Jhala (2000). Variation in lekking costs in blackbuck (Antelope cervicapra): relationship to lek-teritory location and female mating patterns. Behavior 137: 547–563. |
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Sharma D.K., J. Maldonado, Y.V. Jhala & R. Fleischer (2004). Ancient wolf lineages in India. Biology Letters. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London271: S1–S4. |
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Jhala Y.V. (1997). Seasonal effects on the nutritional ecology of the blackbuck. Journal of Applied Ecology 34: 1348–1358. |
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Jhala Y.V. (1993). Predation on blackbuck by the Velavadar wolf pack. Conservation Biology 7(4): 874-881 |
Last Updated: December 2, 2019