RESEARCH ARTICLES CURRENT SCIENCE, VOL. 86, NO. 10, 25 MAY 2004 1390 *For correspondence. (e-mail: spskushwaha@yahoo.com) 25. Snider, J. R. and Berenguier, J. L., Cloud condensation nuclei and cloud droplet measurements during ACE-2. Tellus, Ser. B, 2000, 52, 828–842. 26. McFarquhar, G. M. and Heymsfield, A. J., Parameterizations of INDOEX micro-physical measurements and calculations of cloud susceptibility: Applications for climate studies. J. Geophys. Res. – Atmos., 2001, 106, 28675–28698. 27. Heymsfield, A. J. and McFarquhar, G. M., Microphysics of INDOEX clean and polluted trade cumulus cloud. J. Geophys. Res. – Atmos., 2001, 106, 28653–28673. 28. Ricchiazzi, P., Yang, S., Gautier, C. and Sowle, D., SBDART, A research and teaching tool for plane-parallel radiative transfer in the earth’s atmosphere. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 1998, 79, 2101– 2114. 29. Hess, M., Koepke, P. and Schult, I., Optical properties of aerosols and clouds: The software package OPAC. Bull. Am. Meteorol. Soc., 1998, 79, 831–844. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS. The study was carried out as part of ISRO–GBP and ARMEX. We thank Prof. J. Srinivasan, Centre for Atmo- spheric and Oceanic Sciences, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore for valuable suggestions and guidance. Received 17 October 2003; revised accepted 27 January 2004 Evaluation of sambar and muntjak habitats using geostatistical modelling S. P. S. Kushwaha 1, *, A. Khan 2 , B. Habib 2 , A. Quadri 2 and A. Singh 1 1 Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun 248 001, India 2 Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh 202 002, India We report here the habitat evaluation for sambar (Cervus unicolor var. niger) and muntjak (Muntiacus muntjak var. vaginalis) in Ranikhet forests of Kumaon Himalaya using field survey, geostatistical analysis and geospatial tools. The geostatistical analysis was attempted at three levels: first, cases of animal sight- ing were taken (inclusive of mixed sightings) and sub- jected to principal components analysis to find the micro-habitat ‘preference’ by the respective animal. Secondly, cases where either sambar or muntjak were sighted were grouped into three categories, viz. pure sambar, pure muntjak and mixed and subsequently subjected to a discriminant function analysis to elicit the factors responsible for habitat use differentiation. Thirdly, a multiple binomial logistic regression was run on the dataset using cases of animal sighting used as Boolean values as the dependent and six physical habitat variables, viz. forest density, drainage, aspect, slope, elevation and the human settlements variables as independents to derive the distribution of the res- pective species. Both the species showed highest pre- ference for oak forests. Only 4.07% area was found highly suitable for sambar and 2.37% (200 ha) was so for muntjak. About 20% area in case of sambar and 10% in case of muntjak turned out to be moderately suitable to less suitable. The two species had only 0.35% (29.71 ha) habitat overlap. The sensitivity of the model was found to be 87.8% for sambar and 97.62% for muntjak. The study highlights synergistic use of field survey, geostatistical analysis and geospa- tial tools for evaluation of the sambar and muntjak habitats. WILDLIFE includes non-domestic plants and animals and holds the key for the well being of humans. In recent years, much interest has been shown towards protection and conservation of wildlife at various levels. The work on conservation and management of wildlife is often hampered due to non-availability of good quality data on species, habitats and suitability of the habitats for differ- ent species. The problem is more acute in the developing world, where wildlife and biodiversity conservation is often subordinated to more pressing demands like hunger and poverty 1 . Habitat evaluation is the first step towards meaningful wildlife conservation and management. Eva- luation of wildlife habitats based on ecological principles is well established in USA in connection with environ- mental impact assessments, where the aim has been to ensure that appropriate consideration is given to wildlife in the development planning process. At the same time, there has been considerable pressure for the use of stan- dardized procedures for habitat evaluation, both for eco- nomical as well as ecological reasons among various organizations and professionals. This pressure for stan- dardization was one of the reasons why the Habitat Evaluation Procedure (HEP) was developed (initially by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service) for use in the evalua- tion of water and related land resources development pro- jects 2 . First developed in 1976, the HEP has been modified since then after detailed assessments and there are now