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

	Ecology of lions in the Greater Gir Landscape.
	Research and conservation of threatened and endangered fauna of Kutch.
	Ecology and monitoring of tigers in Kanha Tiger Reserve.
	Ecology and population estimation of tigers in the Sunderbans.
	Ecology and monitoring of Tigers in Ranthambore.
	Monitoring the status of tigers, co-predators, prey and their habitat in India.

 
Key Publications

	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.
	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.
	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.
	Jhala Y.V. (1997). Seasonal effects on the nutritional ecology of the blackbuck. Journal of Applied Ecology 34: 1348–1358.
	Jhala Y.V. (1993). Predation on blackbuck by the Velavadar wolf pack. Conservation Biology 7(4): 874-881