{"id":236823,"date":"2023-04-08T19:19:23","date_gmt":"2023-04-08T13:49:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=236823"},"modified":"2023-04-10T13:40:23","modified_gmt":"2023-04-10T08:10:23","slug":"a-megafauna-bias-in-indias-carnivore-research-is-hampering-the-countrys-conservations-efforts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/a-megafauna-bias-in-indias-carnivore-research-is-hampering-the-countrys-conservations-efforts\/","title":{"rendered":"A megafauna bias in India\u2019s carnivore research is hampering the country\u2019s conservations efforts"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><b>Source: <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The post is based on the article <\/span><b>\u201cA megafauna bias in India\u2019s carnivore research is hampering the country\u2019s conservations efforts\u201d <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">published in <\/span><b>Down To Earth <\/b>on <b>8th April 2023<\/b><\/p>\n<h2><b>What is the News?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">substantial research and conservation resources invested towards studying, protecting and managing smaller and less charismatic carnivores has generally been poor.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What is Carnivore?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A carnivore is an organism that mostly eats meat, or the flesh of animals. Carnivores are sometimes called predators. Organisms that carnivores hunt are called prey.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About the Research on carnivore population in India<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Estimates show that India is home to 23% of the world\u2019s carnivore population, belonging to 60 species.\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Indian leopard, golden jackal, dhole and jungle cat are the other top carnivores that have received a substantial research focus.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For instance, scientific research on mega-carnivore tiger has led to the establishment of Project Tiger in 1973 and helped in the establishment of tiger reserves in 50 locations across the country.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Similarly, research on the Indian leopard has resulted in the formulation of national guidelines on human-leopard conflict mitigation.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But the quality of studies on smaller and less charismatic carnivores has generally been poor.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For instance, many smaller and less charismatic carnivores like the fishing cat, which are denizens of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet\u2014freshwaters or wetlands\u2014even basic ecological data like distribution range remain unclarified.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>Why is it important to focus on smaller carnivores?<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Research on smaller and less charismatic carnivores is important as it helps in understanding the important link between carnivores and their ecological communities and ecosystems, which has implications for human sustenance.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">For instance, Small cats also execute important ecological functions like controlling rodent populations, known to be agricultural pests and disease carriers, dispersing seeds, and maintaining forest ecosystems. Civets are known to disperse seeds and help in maintaining forest ecosystems.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>What are the steps that should be taken to improve carnivore conservation in India?\u00a0<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Increased funding for research on lesser-known carnivores which could help generate knowledge, foster public interest and support.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Increased focus on lesser-known species by adopting best practices in socio-ecological studies, widening the ambit of interdisciplinary work, democratizing carnivore science through partnerships and enhancing synergy between carnivore researchers and research groups.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Source: The post is based on the article \u201cA megafauna bias in India\u2019s carnivore research is hampering the country\u2019s conservations efforts\u201d published in Down To Earth on 8th April 2023 What is the News? The substantial research and conservation resources invested towards studying, protecting and managing smaller and less charismatic carnivores has generally been poor.&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/a-megafauna-bias-in-indias-carnivore-research-is-hampering-the-countrys-conservations-efforts\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">A megafauna bias in India\u2019s carnivore research is hampering the country\u2019s conservations efforts<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10317,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1566,4182,9],"tags":[11388,10504,10514],"class_list":["post-236823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-daily-factly-articles","category-environment","category-public","tag-carnivore-conservation","tag-down-to-earth","tag-dte","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704202346},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10317"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236823"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236823\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}