Dr. Rumaan Malhotra is a wildlife biologist with a background in endangered species conservation. More recently, he has been interested in the spatial ecology of human-tolerant species. Currently, he studies how various human impacts interact in their effects on native carnivores such as foxes and small wildcats. In particular, he is interested in the role of domestic dogs in driving native carnivore space usage. He earned his PhD from the University of Michigan, and his bachelor’s from Drexel University. Dr. Malhotra carried out his doctoral work in Southern Chile, where he found that agricultural landscapes were preferentially used by dogs, which affected where native foxes were found. As an avid photographer, Dr. Malhotra always has a camera in hand to document the landscapes, in which he works, and their wild inhabitants.
Dr. Malhotra aims to be studying the movement ecology of free-ranging domestic dogs in the Spiti Valley of Himachal Pradesh. He will be determining if distinct groups of dogs can be identified by their movement behavior, and if their movement corresponds with where threat of disease spillover is concentrated for humans and wildlife (specifically, rabies and canine distemper), with the spatial use of wildlife, and with livestock mortality.