Athira Balakrishnan is a Ph. D. Scholar at School of Natural Sciences and Engineering, NIAS. She is guided by Prof. Sindhu Radhakrishna under the programme, Animal Behaviour and Cognition.
The title of her thesis is; From Wild to Vermin: A Study on Human-Wild pig Conflict in India. Wildlife species are occasionally designated as 'vermin,' ostensibly, in an attempt to reduce human-wildlife conflict. However, the motivations behind such policy initiatives are not always very clear. The objective of my study is to determine the events or procedures involved in declaring a wildlife species as vermin in India, using the wild pig as a case study. I propose to examine the human-wild pig conflict in two states in India, one where the species was declared vermin and one where there have been consistent efforts to do so. This is to understand the associations between wild pig crop depredation levels and farmers' attitudes toward the species; farmers' lobbies and the nature of their interface with the forest department and the state government; as well as how these interactions influence the larger process of vermin declaration.
Prior to joining NIAS, she was working as a Junior Research Biologist in Salim Ai Centre for Ornithology and Natural History (SACON), Coimbatore. She completed her Masters in Animal Science from the Central University of Kerala and qualified CSIR-JRF.
She is interested in other broad research areas such as; conservation ecology, animal behaviour, butterfly taxonomy, insect collection and preservation techniques.
