The Thing About Wildlife

Ayushi Jain is a National Geographic Photo Ark EDGE Fellow focusing on the endangered Cantor’s giant softshell turtle, which is part of the work she first began during her master's research. Her primary research interests lie in community ecology, behavioural ecology, and evolution of various morphological and physiological traits in reptiles. Ayushi’s project aims to collect baseline ecological data for Cantor’s giant softshell turtle and its habitat at locations in three South Indian states, and to use this data to develop a Conservation Action Plan for the species.

Instagram: @chelonia_crania | Twitter: @chelonia_crania

Articles:

1. Pieces for Sanctuary

2. Vanishing Act: The Slow Decline of Cantor’s Giant Softshell Turtle

3. Saving One of the Largest and Rarest Turtles from Extinction

4. Conserving the Cantor's Giant Softshell Turtle in Kerala

Misha Bansal works with the Nature Conservation Foundation. After doing a Bachelor’s in Biochemistry and a Master’s in Life Sciences, Misha fell in love with birds through some early research work in the Aravallis in Delhi where she grew up. Ever since, she’s worked with various organizations to facilitate outreach and outdoor learning, most currently with the Early Bird program. Through her work with NCF, she has been working towards helping people build a greater connect with nature. 

Twitter: @bansal_misha | Instagram: @little.brown.dove

Tanmay Wagh is a marine ecologist with the Dakshin Foundation who has been working in the Andaman Islands since 2013. Ever since, he’s been a part of various projects related to coral reefs, mangroves, seagrasses and dugongs, elasmobranch fisheries and leatherback turtles. At the moment, in addition to being on the outset of his PhD, he is also the Project Coordinator of the Marine Programme as part of the Long Term Ecological Observatories programme of the MOEFCC.

Twitter: @TanmayWagh5

Articles:

1. Protected areas and benthic characteristics influence the distribution of the Vulnerable bumphead parrotfish in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, India

2. Observations on the female flowers and fruiting of Tape Grass from South Andaman Islands, India

Chayant Gonsalves is a naturalist, birder, artist and all-round snake enthusiast. After completing his training in wildlife biology and conservation from the National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, he has returned to his roots and innate love for urban biodiversity, which he continues to engage with through snake rescues, filmmaking, nature trails and art. 

Social media: Instagram @chayantgonsalves | Twitter @chayantg

Shownotes:

1. Living with snakes: a short YouTube documentary

2. Annotated checklist of the snakes of Bengaluru Urban District

3. Romulus Whitaker | Gerry Martin | Gowri Shankar

4. Face of a Spider - an essay by David Quammen

Jobin Varughese is an ecologist with a masters in ecology from Pondicherry University. His initial training as an architect, and later as a landscape architect, now contributes in interesting ways to his work on animal behaviour and movement. With an increasing interest in the natural sciences, and growing experience within the field, Jobin entirely shifted gears towards ecology in 2015, and is now studying the bird communities of the wonderful Shola sky islands for his PhD at IISER Thirupathi with Dr. V V Robin.

Instagram, featuring his fabulous illustrations: @varughesejobin | Twitter: @jobinvarughese

Articles:

1. Oriental Pied Hornbill preying upon a Black-crested Bulbul nestling

2. Slow conservation in the Nilgiris field learning center: an integrative model of education, research, and practice

Ishaan Patil is an early career scientist who is not sure what to call himself yet: anthropologist, environmental scientist or social scientist? He studied Life Science at St. Xaviers’ College, Autonomous, Mumbai, and then took a year off to intern close to home at the Centre for Wildlife Studies and the Nature Conservation Foundation. Next, he did his Masters in Environmental Anthropology at the University of Kent, and now works as a research assistant at the James Hutton Institute in Scotland. He is multi-talented, with interests both personal and professional ranging from art and video making to social media and social justice.

Social Media:

Instagram: @ishaanpatil | Twitter: @Ish2an

Mrunal Ghosalkar, a National Geographic certified educator, began her conservation journey with the Nature Conservation Foundation by studying the occupancy of hornbills through interviews in northeast India. She later started a program called 'Janata Waghoba' in rural Maharashtra with Wildlife Conservation Society - India to build awareness about leopards in human-dominated landscapes across various stakeholders. She has also worked as a project coordinator for the wild shale EE program at the Centre for Wildlife Studies, and now, she is working as conservation education manager on the Great Indian Bustard Program with WCS.

Instagram: @mrunalghosalkar

YouTube: Mrunal has a couple of very informative documentaries up on her channel. Click here to check them out!

Multimedia Outreach & Shownotes:

1. Young protectors of Bandhavgarh

2. Earth Day Series: Wildlife Conservationist Mrunal Ghosalkar on Living With Leopards

3. Great Indian Bustard Project

4. Janata Waghoba: A Story of People and Leopards in Rural Maharashtra

5. Friends of the Feline

Taniya Gill is a doctoral candidate from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Delhi. She began her journey into understanding animal personalities with the rhesus macaques of Shimla during her M.Phil, which has now led her to study the individual unique behaviours and mannerisms of this species in the forest fringes of Delhi.

She is also a talented guitarist, and is responsible for both today's stories and music!

Twitter: @taniyagill2

Instagram: @t.an.i.ya_

Journal articles:

1. Impact of individual demographic and social factors on human–wildlife interactions: a comparative study of three macaque species

2. Grooming and Aggression: A Comparative Study of Rhesus Macaque (Macaca mulatta) and Hanuman langurs (Prebystis entellus)

3. An investigation of social interactions among rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) as a predictor of human-monkey interactions at the Jakhoo temple in Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, India.

Nitya Prakash Mohanty is a herpetologist who has spent the last decade studying frogs and lizards, asking interesting questions about their patterns of invasion and sleep! He began his foray into wildlife with a master’s from the Wildlife Institute of India, wherein he studied spotted deer and frogs in the Andaman Islands. After a PhD and a postdoc in South Africa, Nitya is currently doing more post-doctoral research at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

Twitter: @NityaPM

The new study that we chatted about in this episode: Urban lizards use sleep sites that mirror the structural, thermal, and light properties of natural sites

To listen to our longer conversation from Season-1, head over to these links on Spotify / Google Podcasts!