
@article {158495,
	title = {Assessing ungulate response to conservation-oriented village relocations and their associated management practices in a tiger reserve in central India},
	year = {2025},
	abstract = {<p><span style="color: rgb(34, 34, 34); font-family: Merriweather, serif; font-size: 18px;">Conservation-oriented village relocations are used as tools for wildlife conservation in developing nations like India, despite the potential sociocultural and economic costs associated with displacement. In tiger reserves in central India, abandoned village sites are developed as grasslands to improve tiger prey numbers. However, little is known about how village relocations and their associated management interventions influence ungulate habitat use. The aim of the study was to understand the impact of village relocations on ungulates by assessing how the intensity of habitat use by five ungulate species (sambar, chital, gaur, nilgai, wild pig), quantified using dung accumulation rates, changed with respect to time since relocation and distance from the edge of a site (relocated/active village) in the Satpura Tiger Reserve, central India. The intensity of use of relocated village sites by sambar, chital, gaur, and nilgai increased with time since relocation, while for wild pigs, it decreased. The intensity of habitat use by all five species of ungulates was negatively correlated with distance from the edge of the site. Our results suggest that village relocations coupled with grassland management activities lead to increased intensity of habitat use by some species and, over time, this may lead to increased populations of these large herbivores, aiding the recovery of large mammalian predators. While this study focused on the ecological implications of relocations, there is also a critical need to view relocations as coupled social-ecological systems to better understand their viability as conservation interventions.</span></p>
},
	doi = {10.1007/s10531-025-03101-1},
	url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10531-025-03101-1},
	author = {R. Yashaswi Rao and Mahesh Sankaran and Devcharan Jathanna and Anish Andheria}
}
