01599nas a2200109   4500000000100000000000100001008004100002260008200043100001300125245008000138520127100218       2005                            d  bFoundation for Ecological Research, Advocacy and LearningaPondicherry, India1 aRauf Ali00aField Studies for the Conservation and Management of Point Calimere Complex3 a<p>A survey of Point Calimere Wildlife sanctuary was done between December 2004 and May<br />2005. Various ecological aspects of the sanctuary were examined. The most important finding is that Prosopis is now a problem weed destroying both<br />tropical dry everygreen forest critical to birds and coastal grasslands critical to a<br />healthy blackbuck population. This threat needs to be eliminated. This can be done in<br />a manner as to benefit landless people living on the fringes of the sanctuary. Line transects are a more efficient way of estimating animal numbers in the park<br />than the existing method of total counts. Hypersalinity in the salt pans, in the areas surrounding the park will likely affect<br />the bird populations negatively since the marine organisms lower in the food chain<br />may not be able to survive in them. This becomes a priority study for future action. A CD is supplied with this report that contains background reading on line transects and<br />digital copies of the maps generated for this report. It also has LANDSAT imagery for the<br />sanctuary for 1978, 1991 and 1999. These can be viewed using MULTISPEC, a freeware<br />available on the Internet; we recommend that the latest available version be downloaded.</p>