A new book by conservationist MK Ranjitsinh on understanding the larger mammals of the world's mountains is scheduled to be released next month. Touted to be a rare comprehensive work, Mountain Mammals of the World is a mammoth collection of almost 62 species and 78 subspecies whose primary habitat and distribution are mountains, reported PTI.
The book is published by Penguin Random House India (PRHI) and is by the 86-year-old former Madhya Pradesh cadre Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer from the 1961 batch. Ranjitsinh, who earned the moniker India's Cheetah Man for his determining role in wildlife conservation, brings alive the world of these mammals with spectacular photographs and maps to show the distribution of each species, their status, behaviour, ecology and other aspects.
Speaking about this book, he said, "I have restricted the scope of this book to only the larger mountain mammals, above approximately 20 kg in weight — again, arbitrarily. This is because covering all the mountain mammals of the world, from voles, moles, pikas and marmots to others, would have made the work encyclopedic, extending over a number of volumes."
"There is no one book as yet of even the larger mountain mammals of the world," writes the author in his book. The book's foreword is written by eminent biologist and conservationist George B Schaller, who said the book represents a "unique legacy and is a contribution to the world's wildlife which will help guide conservation programmes".
"No one knows the array of large mountain mammals better than Ranjitsinh. We are so fortunate that he has assembled his own information and insights as well as data from the available literature into this timely volume of Mountain Mammals of the World," he added.
Ranjitsinh's most noted works are the drafting of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 of India and demarcating forests as wildlife sanctuaries, PTI reported.
