Certificate - Etheses - Saurashtra University

With gratitude, I would like to thank the Chief Wildlife Warden, Himachal Pradesh
Forest and Wildlife Department for according me the necessary permission for
conducting research on such a wonderful bear species in the Kugti wildlife sanctuary.
I greatly appreciate the support and trust of Conservator forest, Divisional forest
officers, Range officers and forest staff of Chamba and Bharmaur divisions. Without
their support, conducting research in the field areas would not have been possible.
In deeply thank the former Director of Wildlife Institute of India, Shri S.K.
Mukherjee, for giving me the permission to conduct research on Himalayan brown
bear. His successors, Shri V.B. Sawarker, Shri Singsit, and the present Director Shri
P.R. Sinha have greatly supported my research and provided all necessary facilities at
this institute. I sincerely thank all of them.
I truly and deeply wish to thank several of the faculty members of WII, especially
Dean Dr. V.B. Mathur, Dr. G.S. Rawat, Dr. S. Sathyakumar, Dr. V.P. Uniyal and Dr.
Bitapi Sinha, who provided me their guidance, support and cooperation in several
ways. Shri Virender Sharma of DTP section helped me thesis preparation, and Shri
Vinod Thakur provided assistance in scat analysis. I thank both of them. I am thankful
to Dr. Harendra Singh Bargali and Dr. Naim Akhtar for their guidance and
cooperation in several ways in WII.
I wish to thank my all family members, my mother, uncles, brother, sisters, Shri
Umesh Rathore, cousins Jaggu Rajiv, Ramesh, Dinesh, Rohit, Beenu, father-in-law
Shri Shakti Prashsd and brother-in-law Sanju and Pinchu, who had been a source of
constant encouragement.
I express my deep sense of gratitude to all the nomadic shepherds of Kugti wildlife
sanctuary, who provided me information on livestock depredation problem and
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