Conservators working to revive the grassland ecosystem in Pune will now conduct a examine to grasp socio-ecological behaviours of Indian wolves in Saswad. It would be the first-ever examine in India to get perception into the Indian wolf’s life cycle utilising synthetic intelligence (AI) and drone know-how, stated officers on Sunday.

This examine has been undertaken by Grassland Trust in affiliation with the forest division. Two overseas researchers may also be a part of this examine. The first module of the examine had been accomplished and length of the examine shall be two years.

As per the forest division knowledge, presently, over 45 wolves are residing in five-six wolf dens within the grasslands of Saswad. As the subspecies of gray wolves, these wolves are categorised because the schedule I (most protected) species underneath the Wildlife Protection Act, of 1972. Known to be over 1,000,000 years older than all different wolf species on this planet, Indian Grey Wolves maintain a singular place in evolutionary historical past and symbolize evolutionary important models (ESUs). However, the declining inhabitants put them into an ‘endangered’ animal class.

Mihir Godbole, founder, Grasslands Trust stated, “Social carnivores, including wolves, have captivated our attention as they live in complex societies and exhibit remarkable collective behaviours, such as coordinated hunting. Despite the high interest our fundamental quantitative understanding behaviour of social carnivores is significantly lacking because of the limitations in tracking, bio-logging, and observing social carnivores. Traditional methods of tracking using bio-loggers (GPS collars) have several drawbacks. High-resolution (1Hz) bio-loggers are expensive and have limited battery life. More importantly, deploying bio-loggers is a highly invasive and stress-inducing process for the animals.”

“We will attempt to bridge this gap in our knowledge by studying behaviours, movement patterns, and habitat structure of Indian wolves living in a human-dominated landscape in Maharashtra. We will us drone-based tracking method that overcome the limitations of bio-logging. The method is developed by the team of scientists led by Prof Iain Couzin at the Centre for Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour at the University of Konstanz, Germany and Max Planck institute of Animal Behaviour, added Godbole

This method uses state-of-the-art computer vision algorithms to automatically detect and track the location and body posture of free-roaming animals in a drone-based aerial videos. Along with the fine-grained 3D habitat models. This method is cost-effective, flexible, and non-invasive.

Adwait Deshpande from University of Konstanz who conceived the project is collecting pilot data on Indian wolves in adjoining areas of Pune.

Tushar Chavan, conservator (wildlife), Pune forest department said, “The department has permitted this study; however, we are awaiting the data of its first module.”