Indian Wolf (Canis lupus pallipes)

Ladakh is a high-altitude mountain range situated in the Indian State of Jammu & Kashmir. It is located along theborders of China and Pakistan and is split into two districts–Kargil and Leh. The former is predominantly inhabited by Muslims belonging to the Twelver Shi’i sect, whereas the latter is inhabited mostly by Tibetan Buddhists belonging to the Mahayana school (Gupta, 2014; Bhatia et al., 2017). The population density of Ladakh is 4 people/km and most inhabitants are involved in subsistence agriculture and livestock rearing, although the presence of the Indian army and a recent surge in tourism have provided local people with alternative employment (Dinnerstein, 2013; Bhatia et al., 2017). Our study villages were in the Rong valley –200E) in the eastern part of Leh district inhabited predominantly by agropastoral communities (Fig. 1). In thisregion, as in other parts of Ladakh, people and wild animals share the landscape leading to frequent interactions. Crop damage by wild ungulates poses a challenge, and widespread livestock depredation by the snow leopard and the wolf, at its extreme, results in retribution or preventive killing (Bhat-nagar, Stakrey & Jackson, 1999; Maheshwari et al., 2012).
Understanding people’s responses toward predators in the Indian Himalaya. Bhatia S, Suryawanshi K, Redpath SM, Mishra C.Animal Conservation. 2020 Sep

We chose seven districts in western Maharashtra (Nashik, Ahmednagar, Pune, Satara, Sangli, Solapur, and Kolhapur),which together cover 89,853 km2of primarily semi arid human-dominated landscapes (Figures 1 and 2). District-level human population densities range from 266.48 to602.63 people/km2…The landscape is highly heterogeneous; the western fringes abutting the Western Ghats are more forested and receive higher rainfall (average monsoon rainfall June–September = 230 mm).The central and easternparts of the study area receive less rainfall (average monsoonrainfall = 90 mm), and are dominated by arid habitats with a grassland-cropland mosaic…
The region has three large river basins (the Godavari, Krishna, and the Bhima), where agricultural intensification through irrigation has modified arid habitat in the past few decades, where cultivated areas are dominated by sugarcane, millet, grapes, paddy, soya, and other cash crops (DistrictCensus Handbook http://censusindia.gov.in/2011census/dchb/DCHB.html; accessed July 17, 2017). Most arid lands and forests under the State Forest Department’s control have been progressively converted to monoculture plantations of Azadirachta indica, Gliricidia sepium, Eucalyptus spp., and Acacia spp.over the past five decades…
We collected detection/non detection information on all three carnivores under an occupancy framework(MacKenzie et al., 2018), treating 305 forest administrative units called“rounds”as independent sampling units…
We collected these data through interviews with forest department field staff as our key informants who were active in the field at least during the previous 12 months and were therefore likely to provide reliable information. The average area of the sites was 299.52 km2(±19.11 [standard error [SE]). Because we wanted to examine true occupancy and not habitat use, almost all sites were considerably larger than the estimated home range sizes for all species (120–300 km2 for wolf [Habib, 2007; Jhala & Giles, 1991];6–50 km2 for leopard [Odden, Athreya, Rattan, & Linnell,2014]; 6–10 km2 for hyena [Athreya et al., 2013]).
Land‐sharing potential of large carnivores in human‐modified landscapes of western India. Majgaonkar I, Vaidyanathan S, Srivathsa A, Shivakumar S, Limaye S, Athreya V. Conservation Science and Practice. 2019 May

Previous studies have posited the use of acoustics-based surveys to monitor population size and estimate their density. However, decreasing the bias in population estimations, such as by using Capture–Mark–Recapture, requires the identification of individuals using supervised classification methods, especially for sparsely populated species like the wolf which may otherwise be counted repeatedly. The cryptic behaviour of Indian wolf (Canis lupus pallipes) poses serious challenges to survey efforts, and thus, there is no reliable estimate of their population despite a prominent role in the ecosystem. Like other wolves, Indian wolves produce howls that can be detected over distances of more than 6 km, making them ideal candidates for acoustic surveys. Here, we explore the use of a supervised classifier to identify unknown individuals. We trained a supervised Agglomerative Nesting hierarchical clustering (AGNES) model using 49 howls from five Indian wolves and achieved 98% individual identification accuracy. We tested our model’s predictive power using 20 novel howls from a further four individuals (test dataset) and resulted in 75% accuracy in classifying howls to individuals. The model can reduce bias in population estimations using Capture-Mark-Recapture and track individual wolves non-invasively by their howls. This has potential for studies of wolves’ territory use, pack composition, and reproductive behaviour. Our method can potentially be adapted for other species with individually distinctive vocalisations, representing an advanced tool for individual-level monitoring.