Jennifer R.B. Miller G.S. Rawat K. Ramesh
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Jennifer R.B. Miller G.S. Rawat K. Ramesh Pheasant Population Recovery as an Indicator of Biodiversity Conservation in the Great Himalayan National Park, India Jennifer R.B. Miller U.S. Fulbright Scholar Dr. G.S. Rawat Supervisor Dr. K. Ramesh Co-Supervisor October 2008 A research project funded by a United States Fulbright Scholarship in affiliation with The Wildlife Institute of India Copyright © 2008 by Jennifer R.B. Miller The Wildlife Institute of India, PO Box #18, Chandrabani, Dehradun 248001, Uttrakhand, India Cover photographs: Mountain scene at Koilipoi camp, GHNP © Jennifer R.B. Miller; Plumages of Western Tragopan, Himalayan Monal and Koklass Pheasant, modified from photos © John Corder The authors welcome discussion on the data and conclusions in this report. Please contact [email protected] with your comments. Suggested citation: Miller, J.R.B., Rawat, G.S., and K. Ramesh. 2008. Pheasant population recovery as an indicator of biodiversity conservation in the Great Himalayan National Park, India. Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, India. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES _________________________________________________________ i LIST OF FIGURES _________________________________________________________ ii LIST OF PLATES _________________________________________________________ iii LIST OF APPENDICES _____________________________________________________ iv PROJECT BACKGROUND AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS _____________________________ v ABSTRACT______________________________________________________________ 1 1 INTRODUCTION_________________________________________________________ 2 1.1 Human Exclusion as a Conservation Practice _____________________________ 2 1.2 The Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP) as a Case Study ________________ 3 1.3 Biodiversity Conservation Efforts in the Great Himalayan National Park _______ 4 1.4 The Need for Ecological Assessment ___________________________________ 9 1.5 Study Objectives __________________________________________________ 11 2 METHODS____________________________________________________________ 13 2.1 Design Overview __________________________________________________ 13 2.2 Study Species _____________________________________________________ 13 2.3 Intensive Study Site ________________________________________________ 15 2.4 Population Abundance Estimates______________________________________ 17 2.5 Interviews with Villagers and Park Officials_____________________________ 19 2.6 Analysis _________________________________________________________ 20 3 RESULTS ____________________________________________________________ 22 3.1 Population Abundance Estimates______________________________________ 22 3.1.1 Overall Abundance _____________________________________________ 22 3.1.2 Abundance by Transect__________________________________________ 22 3.1.3 Abundance by Forest Type _______________________________________ 25 3.1.4 Abundance by Elevation Range ___________________________________ 25 3.2 Group Characteristics for Himalayan Monal_____________________________ 28 3.3 Call Frequency for Koklass Pheasant and Western Tragopan________________ 30 3.4 Interviews________________________________________________________ 30 4 DISCUSSION __________________________________________________________ 33 4.1 Recovery of Pheasants and Park Biodiversity ____________________________ 33 4.2 Causes of Recovery ________________________________________________ 34 4.2.1 Impacts of the Ban on NTFP Collection_____________________________ 35 4.2.2 Impacts of the Declining Gucchii __________________________________ 36 4.3 Management Recommendations ______________________________________ 37 4.4 Final Remarks ____________________________________________________ 41 5 REFERENCES _________________________________________________________ 42 LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Characteristics of the sampling units used to estimate pheasant population abundances ______________________________________________________ 16 Table 2. Mean and change in encounter rate before and after the ban on natural resource harvesting in the Great Himalayan National Park ________________________ 24 Table 3. Male to female composition ratio of male-female combined groups ________ 29 Table 4. Encounter rates of Koklass Pheasant and Western Tragopan from comparable studies__________________________________________________________ 34 i LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1. Location and composition of the Great Himalayan National Park___________ 6 Figure 2. Map of the intensive study area in the Great Himalayan National Park _____ 16 Figure 3. Depiction of call count stations used to measure population abundances for Koklass Pheasant and Western Tragopan ______________________________ 19 Figure 4. Encounter rates before and after natural resource harvesting was banned____ 23 Figure 5. Encounter rates by forest type in 2008_______________________________ 26 Figure 6. Encounter rates by elevation range in 2008 ___________________________ 27 Figure 7. Proportion of observations of Himalayan Monal in each elevation range ____ 28 Figure 8. Group characteristics of Himalayan Monal observed in 2008 _____________ 29 Figure 9. Calling frequency of Koklass Pheasant and Western Tragopan in 2008 _____ 30 Figure 10. Buying price for dried gucchii over time in Gushani and Banjar _________ 31 ii LIST OF PLATES Plate 1. Photographs of gucchii ____________________________________________ 47 Plate 2. Photographs of study species _______________________________________ 48 Plate 3. Photographs of Kharongcha villagers_________________________________ 49 iii LIST OF APPENDICES Appendix 1. Data sheet for measuring population abundance of Himalayan Monal ___ 50 Appendix 2. Data sheet for transects ________________________________________ 51 Appendix 3. Data sheet for measuring population abundances of Koklass Pheasant and Western Tragopan ________________________________________________ 52 Appendix 4. Data sheet for call count stations_________________________________ 53 Appendix 5. Detailed descriptions of transect and call count stations_______________ 54 iv PROJECT BACKGROUND AND ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The seed behind this project was sown during my first visit to India as a second- year college student in 2006. On a visit to Corbett National Tiger Park with my father, I observed villages situated along the fringes of the protected area and head stories of the conflicts that exist between human and wildlife communities around and inside the park. I had read about such places in National Geographic but actually seeing the struggle inspired me to make wildlife conservation my personal mission. Upon returning to my college two weeks later, I declared my major as Organismal Biology and dedicated my remaining time as an undergraduate to learning ecology. Two years later as I prepared to graduate from college, my thoughts wandered back to my experience in Corbett and I began to search for a way to study conservation in the same region. I found my answer in the U.S. Fulbright Scholarship, a grant that would provide me with nine months of financial support to carry out research in India on a topic of my choice. A family friend helped me contact Mr. Payson Stevens, a prominent philanthropist in Himachal Pradesh and adviser to the Indian non-government organizations, My Himachal and Friends of GHNP. He recommended that I contact the Director of the Great Himalayan National Park (GHNP), Mr. Sanjeeva Pandey, who in turn passed me along to Dr. G.S. Rawat of the Wildlife Institute of India. Dr. Rawat had been part of the 1994-1999 Forestry Research Education and Extension Project that gathered baseline data on the ecological and social environment of the park. He realized that I offered an ideal opportunity to collect follow-up data and we decided that I would collaborate with one of his previous students, Dr. K. Ramesh, who had carried out his PhD dissertation research on pheasants in the Great Himalayan National Park. Our project proposal interwove themes of ecodevelopment, local villagers, biodiversity and v conservation practices, and echoed of the issues I had witnessed in Corbett National Tiger Park. My work in the GHNP matured me as a scientist, conservationist and traveler. Carrying out fieldwork in a remote area of a foreign country presented me with a variety of obstacles ranging from the scientific logistics of data collection to language and cultural barriers. I had never worked in a terrain as physically demanding as the Western Himalayas, and conquering the mountains of my study area on a regular basis empowered me as no fieldwork had before. My field assistant, Pritam Singh, generously allowed me to reside in his home while resting from the field, and my days in Kharongcha provided me with invaluable insight into Himachal village culture and lifestyle. Living among the villagers personalized the rural people who were in conflict with the wildlife I had come to study and allowed me to view the system with greater sensitivity to all aspects of the ecosystem. I now appreciate aspects of the country that few foreigners and conservationists can observe and feel very fortunate for the time I spent in rural Himachal Pradesh. This project could not have occurred without the support of countless individuals. First and foremost, I express my gratitude to the United States Department of State, Institute of International Education, United States-India Educational Foundation and Fulbright India office staff members for funding, organizing, coordinating and assisting my entire journey from