Yadvendradev Vikramsinh Jhala

Yadvendradev Vikramsinh Jhala, popularly addressed by his family name Jhala, is an Indian scientist and conservationist. He is the current dean and a senior professor at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun. Over the past three decades, he has studied animals in tropical forest and arid ecosystems and trained a multitude of wildlife professionals across the world.[1]

Yadvendradev Vikramsinh Jhala
BornFebruary 27, 1962 (age 58)
Mumbai, Maharashtra, India
NationalityIndian
Alma materUniversity of Mumbai
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Smithsonian Institution
Known forProject Tiger, Cheetah reintroduction in India
AwardsSanctuary-RBS Wildlife Service Award, 2008
Carl Zeiss Award, 2009
Scientific career
FieldsEcology and wildlife restoration
InstitutionsWildlife Institute of India
St. Xavier's College, Mumbai
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Smithsonian Institution

Jhala led a long-term research project on Asiatic lions.[2] Since 2002, Jhala has been working with Project Tiger, where he designed and led the implementation of national scale population assessments for tigers, other carnivores, and ungulates. The last national assessment of 2018-19, where he led the implementation of scientific components, was accorded a status of the Guinness world record for the largest wildlife survey with camera traps.[3]

Currently he is the Dean of the Wildlife Institute of India, in charge of the conservation initiatives of reintroducing the cheetah in India,and species recovery of the Great Indian Bustard in India.

Career

Jhala has worked closely with Rajesh Gopal and subsequent heads of the Project Tiger,[4] Ministers of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change, and senior bureaucrats in the government to infuse data-based conservation science into national policy and management strategies. He has interacted and given presentations to Prime Ministers Manmohan Singh and Shri Narendra Modi on issues related to tiger conservation in India. Jhala and Qureshi have trained wildlife managers in Bangladesh and assisted in the country's first scientific status assessment of tigers. The Honorable Prime Minister of Bangladesh, Sheikh Hasina, invited them and felicitated them during the release of Bangladesh Tiger Status 2014 report at Dhaka. Prime Ministers, Manmohan Singh, Sh. Narendra Modi and Ministers, Sh. Jairam Ramesh and Sh. Prakash Javdekar have released tiger status publications by Jhala and his colleagues.[5]

Y. V. Jhala on Black Kite Project

He formally teaches courses in quantitative ecology, population ecology, conservation biology, and field research techniques to Masters, Doctoral and Diploma students at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun.[6]

Awards and distinctions

Jhala was awarded Wildlife Service Award-2008 by Sanctuary Asia and Royal Bank of Scotland for “Tiger Conservation Work in India”[7] on January 29, 2009 for which he also received the Carl Zeiss Award in 2009.

A recent honour includes the Guinness world record accorded to WII and National Tiger Conservation Authority for the most extensive wildlife survey through trail cameras bestowed to the 2018-19 tiger survey in India for which Jhala is the lead scientist.[8]

Filmography
  • Counting Tigers, National Geographic Society and iTV, 2019
  • Great Indian Bustard Documentary[9]
  • Decoding the man eaters of Sundarbans, Animal Planet 2017
  • Desert Wolves of India, BBC Wildlife Series, 2004
  • Man-eaters of India, National Geographic Television 1997

See also

References
  1. "Yadvendradev V. Jhala".
  2. "Asiatic Lion and Gir Forest". 2009-04-17.
  3. "Indian tiger study earns its stripes as one of the world's largest wildlife surveys". Guinness World Records. 2020-07-29.
  4. "Counting Tigers". Sanctuary Asia.
  5. "Status Of Tigers India summary 2018" (PDF). National Tiger Conservation Authority.
  6. "Yadvendradev Jhala, Ph.D." Wildlife Institute of India.
  7. "Sanctuary - RBS Wildlife Awards announces Earth Heroes 2008". afaqs!. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  8. "Indian tiger study earns its stripes as one of the world's largest wildlife surveys". Guinness World Records. 2020-07-29. Retrieved 2021-01-10.
  9. "Conservation Breeding center for The Great Indian Bustard at Sam, Jaisalmer, Rajasthan". Youtube. 2019-09-11.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.