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Crop raiding by blue bulls (Boselaphus tragocamelus) is an acute problem faced by farmers in Madhya Pradesh and several other states of India. Culling of its surplus populations is simply a non-option in the face of religious sensitivities associated with this species in India, ‘Capture and translocation’ seems to be the only viable option available with wildlife managers. However, it also requires prior knowledge of its population density and location of herd/ individuals. Although several population estimation techniques for wild ungulates are already in vogue, none of these is suited for blue bulls as these have been developed in the context of deer species. An attempt was, therefore, made to develop suitable techniques for the population estimation of this species on the basis of its unique defecation behaviour of repeated defecation at the same locations, called ‘lavatory sites’ and thereby making huge dung heaps, ostensibly for territorial marking. The investigation was carried out in Van Vihar National Park, Bhopal and it involved several steps, including study of gender specific variation in its defecation behaviour, evolution of a new ‘seen, tag and chase’ method of complete counting and observation of defecation rate of a captive male blue bull kept in an enclosure, prior to finally evolving a new ‘road transect daily defecation rate method’, based on mean daily defecation rate for the population estimation of free ranging adult male blue bulls. In this method, mean daily defecation rate in open was determined after observing defecation at all the active dung heaps for eight days. It was compared with the mean daily defecation rate of a captive adult male blue bull, taken as standard daily defection rate. From this comparison, it was deduced that adult male blue bulls, besides defecating at lavatory sites, defecate elsewhere also in scattered manner. It prompted to bring in the concept of ‘scatter factor’. These new techniques developed during the present investigation can facilitate identification of suitable capture sites for male blue bulls. Since gender ratio of this species at most of the places is heavily biased in favour of females, removal of certain male population from problem areas is bound to further widen the gender imbalance, leading to desired decrease in overall population of blue bulls within few generations.
Boselaphus trogocamelus, nilgai, crop raiding, ‘seen, tag and chase’ method, lavatory sites
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