Collective Behaviours in Wild Indian Wolves & Conservation of Indian Savannahs

Social carnivores have garnered the attention of behavioural biologists because of their complex social structures and remarkable collective behaviours, such as coordinated hunting. However, quantitative understanding of these social and collective behaviours in social carnivores is significantly limited, as fine-scale movement and behavioural data are often unavailable. We are working to bridge this gap in our knowledge by capitalising on a rare opportunity to study the collective behaviours of a unique population of Indian wolves (Canis lupus pallipes) using drones and computer vision.In this seminar, I will outline the hybrid methods we employ for drone-based data collection and provide an overview of the pipeline we are developing to process the raw video data. Additionally, I will discuss key research questions and analytical approaches that we aim to pursue in the near future. Finally, I will present the Savannah conservation project I developed in collaboration with The Grasslands Trust and explore other conservation challenges in the landscape.