Vertebrate Damage Control Research In Agriculture

Vertebrate pests cause considerable damage to environment, agriculture and biodiversity apart from transmitting diseases. The problem is more pronounced in tropical Asia and Africa with non-human primates, elephants, several species of ungulates, rodents, frugivorous and grainivorous birds causing agricultural losses. In Europe and America the damage is due to carnivore predation on livestock, bird damage in cereal crops and rodent problem in urban and agricultural situations. Although there are several excellent books on rodent pest management both in India and at global level, there is a conspicuous lacuna of published books on vertebrate pest management. Even the few publications on the subject mostly deal with birds, rodents, bears, rabbits, foxes, etc because they are written by Americans or Britishers. Because their emphasis is on the problem prevalent in their countries and evaluation of management options available to them. In contrast the problem in tropics especially in India is unique. Rodents of course, are the most destructive. But what rodents do over twelve months of year is matched by a few nights of devastating crop raids by elephants or week long foraging by monkeys. Sporadic and localized damage is inflicted by several species of birds, bats, wild boar, blue bull, bears, hares, peacock etc. The damage is sometimes so high, it is impossible for a subsistence farmer to accept stoically the loss of his entire food source over a couple of days and nights. However, his options are limited in view of conservations and protection status enjoyed by some of these animals. The problem is compounded by religious sentiments associated with a few of them. This book is an attempt to find an acceptable solution to the problem of crop losses of these less studied but economically important groups of vertebrate pests. Sincere efforts have gone into formulation of recommendations keeping in mind the biological needs of vertebrate pests, their conservation status and suffering of the poor farmer. Many a time the sympathies deservedly go to the speechless marauders of crops as it is man who has shrunk, degraded and destroyed their habitat, deprived them of their natural source of food. There are no choices for vertebrate pests but raid the crops in their range but we, humans have several to survive. The book is an attempt to understand this dilemma.

The types of damage caused by wildlife are many and varied, and can be costly and far-reaching. Until now, there has been little effort to identify and evaluate generalities across that broad range of species, methods and topics. Wildlife Damage Control promotes principle-based thinking about managing impact. It documents and discusses the key principles underlying wildlife damage and its control, and demonstrates their application to real-life topics – how they have been used in management actions or how they could be tested in the future. It synthesises the wide but diffuse literature dealing with the impacts of vertebrate pests and encourages readers to adopt a more theoretical framework for thinking about pest impacts and ways to manage them. The book is organised around key principles that apply across species, rather than looking at individual species, and is damage-based not pest animal-based. Within each chapter there are exercises designed to help readers learn and evaluate key principles. Conservation biologists, ecologists and others involved in wildlife management will find the sections covering principles in biodiversity conservation, of production such as agriculture, and in human and animal health of real value.