CWS was delighted to host Dr. Ajith Kumar, India’s leading primatologist, last week. Peppered with humorous, witty anecdotes, his talk, about his 4-decade-long journey as a researcher and conservationist in India, informed the audience about various aspects of wildlife conservation.
It was in the late 1970s that Dr. Kumar began his career in wildlife conservation with a survey of primates in South India.
Dr. Kumar has studied lion-tailed macaques in the Western Ghats for the longest time. His doctorate is on the ecology and population dynamics of this species, from Cambridge University. He explained how, to be free from human-caused mortality through road kills, electrocution and poaching, lion-tailed macaques need vast, contiguous tropical rainforest to inhabit. He also shared his research experiences in the Himalayas where he and his colleagues studied various mammals, birds and herpetofauna.
