Intresting article about this species : Saving the dhole: The forgotten 'badass' Asian dog more endangered than tigers | Environment | The Guardian
India's Dholes declining : As India’s dholes face decline, scientists say more research is needed to frame conservation plans
I've always wondered how dholes (who, as this article states, seem to less resilient to human activity than tigers and leopards) will survive the current Indian conservation model of preserving the heck out of a few core reserves and building heavily human-impacted corridors between them. This research seems well needed. But what shocked me was the fact that dholes are Schedule II on India's Wildlife Protection Act, in line with, like, rhesus macaques. How the most endangered large carnivore in India doesn't make Schedule I is beyond me. Not that the scheduling makes a huge difference, but it does reflect a strange and outdated mindset on the relative conservation value of species.
Rediscovery of the Dhole at the Bardia National Park in Nepal : View of Dhole Cuon alpinus (Mammalia: Carnivora: Canidae) rediscovered in Bardia National Park, Nepal
Report on Dholes in the wild : https://www.cpsg.org/sites/cbsg.org/files/documents/2019 Dhole PHVA Final Report.pdf
I read the article but disappointingly it doesn't really get to the bottom of why the dhole lacks research. Personally I believe it is probably due to basically a repetition of the same old problem (mediocrity) that we see the world over and time and time again with the academic sphere of conservation biology. Researchers want to work with the well trodden path of megafauna rather than the hard work / lesser traveled and pioneer path of studying species that are in the shadows that require research and conservation attention. I imagine that in the Indian subcontinent the tiger, elephant and perhaps even the Asiatic lion are all more "exciting prospects" for PhD students and professors to focus on (more funding guaranteed too which I'm sure is also an incentive). From what I've read and heard research on the tiger in India has been done to death and a tiger can barely take a crap in Rathambore National Park without 10 PhD students all studying subtle variations of the same topic rushing in to fight over taking a fecal sample. I think the problem is essentially one that is rooted deeply in the academic world so that kind of bull**** really has to be confronted relentlessly in the ivory tower.
I haven’t experienced academia in India but this is bang on for the country’s attitude towards dholes in general. The booming domestic wildlife tourism sector, in particular, FULLY overlooks them. Tigermania is a staple in almost all Indian national parks and it’s easy to find 30-40 vehicles with middle class or rich Indians waiting at watering holes for a tiger to emerge in the parks like Ranthambore, Kanha, Tadoba, Pench, etc. There is some amount of interest in leopards and sloth bear but dholes are called “wild dogs” and not thought of as much better than feral dogs. I visited Tadoba a short while ago and encountered this where not one of the 30 vehicles besides mine that was waiting for a tiger to possibly show up at a waterhole showed any interest in following a pair of active dholes who ran through instead. Folks will rarely discuss sightings of dholes when exchanging intel mid or post safari. I’m on a number of WhatsApp groups with guides and photographers from across the subcontinent - there are multiple daily posts about tigers, leopards and lions, but you would be hard pressed to find a single one about dholes. I asked a government guide in Tadoba about this and he told me no one but the most hardcore photographers ever shows interest in dhole, and laughed at me as a “wild dog fan”. I asked a private lodge naturalist in Nagarahole about this and he seemed genuinely offended that I would consider dholes to be of equal conservation or tourism value to tigers. Mind you, all these folks will tell you how dhole sightings are rarer, and that they’re on the decline. It’s just that no one in the industry seems bothered by it. Of course, there are exceptions, and a decent amount of good research, prioritization and conservation of dholes has occurred in the Western Ghats, but I find that the Central Indian population - not to mention the populations in more remote regions like the Northeast, Terai or Eastern Ghats - are heavily neglected by the stakeholders creating “value” in Indian wildlife. And I would not be surprised if that attitude was permeating through academia. We’re talking about a country where dholes are (or, until recently, were) literally on Schedule II of the Wildlife Protection Act when a whole lot of least concern species are on Schedule I (highest level of protection). I see the rebranding effort for African wild dogs and think the first step is to normalize the use of “dhole” instead of “wild dog” which is the current norm here.
Thanks for the reply @Mbwamwitu ! This is really interesting but also deeply depressing stuff, I do have to say good on you for trying to challenge this kind of nonsense and in confronting people about this bulls***. It really doesn't suprise me when it comes to tourists having these attitudes but it is really very worrying that these attitudes and bias persist even within wildlife conservation circles and seem entrenched. To be honest it sounds very colonial to me in terms of prioritization and almost sounds like something from the era of the British Raj except the rifles have now been replaced with cameras and the British big game hunters with wealthy tourists. I absolutely agree with you that I don't think it is enough to be conserving the dhole in the Western Ghats and I think that all of the metapopulations of this canid scattered throughout the subcontinent do need to be prioritized with the same concern that is shown towards India's big cats. Of course, I don't know for sure as have never been to nor worked in India but I do think that this problem will be mirrored to some extent in academic circles too which is a great shame.
Last week, the Chinese government upgraded the dhole to Class I National Protected Species, the same class with giant panda and snub-nosed monkey, which means that the dhole will receive the highest level of protection in China from now on.
For the first time in 30 years Dholes spotted in Kyrgystan : Researchers spot dholes in Kyrgyzstan after 3 decades
