Vertebrate Pests in Agriculture

Contents: 1. Principles of Population Ecology and Vertebrate Pest Management/Shakunthala Sridhara. 2 . Granivorous Bird Pests and their Management/V. Vasudeva Rao and O. P. Dubey. 3. Frugivorous Birds and their Management/Abraham Verghese. 4. Bird Pest Management – Is there a Satisfactory Solution?/Shakunthala Sridhara. 5. Bats in Agriculture/Shakunthala Sridhara. 6.  Rodent Pest Management in Cultivated Crops of India/Shakunthala Sridhara and O.P. Dubey. 7. Rodent Pest Management in Poultry and other Animal Facilities/Shakunthala Sridhara. 8. Rodent Pest Management in Arid Zone Crops/R.S.Tripathi and Vipin Choudhary. 9. Reproductive Management of Rodent Pests/R.K. Parshad. 10. Rodent Management in Groundnut in Gujarat/P.G. Butani, H.J. Vyas and M.N. Kapadia. 11. Pest Status of the Indian Crested Porcupine, Hystrix indica/Chakravarthy, A.K., A.C. Girish and Shakunthala Sridhara. 12. Pheromones in Rodent Pest Management/G. Archunan and S. Achiraman. 13. Conservation Status of Rodents in india/E.A. Jayson and K.M. Jayahari. 14. Management of crop raiding elephants/Shakunthala Sridhara. 15. Wild Boar, Sus scrofa, An Underestimated Crop Pest of India/Shakunthala Sridhara and A.K.Chakravarthy. 16. Crop Damage by Blue-Bull (Boselaphus tragocamelus) and its Management/L.S. Rajpurohit, A.K. Chhangani and S.M. Mohnot. 17. Rhesus Monkey (Macaca mulatta) Problems in India and their Management/Ekwal Imam and Iqbal Malik. 18. Crop Damage by Hanuman Langur, (Semnopithecus entellus) and its Management/A.K. Chhangani, L.S. Rajpurohit and S.M. Mohnot. 19. Vertebrate Pest Management in storage/Shakunthala Sridhara, V. Shivayya and T. Raveendra Babu. 20. Behavioural Aspects in the Management of Vertebrate Pests/Shakunthala Sridhara. 21. Unconventional and Sporadic Vertebrate Crop Depredations/A.K. Chakravarthy, N.E. Thyagaraj and Shakunthala Sridhara. 22 . Vertebrate Predators of Crop Pests/A.K. Chakravarthy, N.E. Thyagaraj and Shakunthala Sridhara. 23. Traditional and Unconventional Methods of Managing Vertebrate Pests/A.K. Chakravarthy and K. Srihari. 24. Vertebrate Pesticides/Shakunthala Sridhara. 25. Perspectives of Vertebrate Pest Management/Shakunthala Sridhara.

Vertebrate pests cause considerable damage to environment, agriculture and biodiversity apart from transmitting diseases. The problem is more pronounced in tropical Asia and Africa with non-human primates, elephants, several species of ungulates, rodents, frugivorous and grainivorous birds causing agricultural losses. In Europe and America the damage is due to carnivore predation on livestock, bird damage in cereal crops and rodent problem in urban and agricultural situations. Although there are several excellent books on rodent pest management both in India and at global level, there is a conspicuous lacuna of published books on vertebrate pest management. Even the few publications on the subject mostly deal with birds, rodents, bears, rabbits, foxes, etc because they are written by Americans or Britishers. Because their emphasis is on the problem prevalent in their countries and evaluation of management options available to them. In contrast the problem in tropics especially in India is unique. Rodents of course, are the most destructive. But what rodents do over twelve months of year is matched by a few nights of devastating crop raids by elephants or week long foraging by monkeys. Sporadic and localized damage is inflicted by several species of birds, bats, wild boar, blue bull, bears, hares, peacock etc. The damage is sometimes so high, it is impossible for a subsistence farmer to accept stoically the loss of his entire food source over a couple of days and nights. However, his options are limited in view of conservations and protection status enjoyed by some of these animals. The problem is compounded by religious sentiments associated with a few of them. This book is an attempt to find an acceptable solution to the problem of crop losses of these less studied but economically important groups of vertebrate pests. Sincere efforts have gone into formulation of recommendations keeping in mind the biological needs of vertebrate pests, their conservation status and suffering of the poor farmer. Many a time the sympathies deservedly go to the speechless marauders of crops as it is man who has shrunk, degraded and destroyed their habitat, deprived them of their natural source of food. There are no choices for vertebrate pests but raid the crops in their range but we, humans have several to survive. The book is an attempt to understand this dilemma. (jacket)