Navjot Sodhi's research helped cut Singapore house crow population by 90%
Grace Chua Straits Times 14 Jun 11;
CONSERVATION scholar Navjot Sodhi, whose research helped pest control agencies cut Singapore's house crow population to a 10th of its former size, died of lymphoma on Sunday. He was 49.
The internationally renowned scholar, who taught in the National University of Singapore (NUS) Department of Bio-logical Sciences, led perhaps the world's first study on a local house crow population in 2000.
His work helped environment agencies cut down and stabilise the population of these raucous scavengers by clearing hawker centre tables of scraps and reducing their tree roosts, whittling down the number of crows from about 100,000 in 2002 to 10,000 today.
Besides advising on the environment here, Professor Sodhi was one of the department's most prolific authors, and was instrumental in helping Singapore punch well above its weight in conservation biology, ecology and biodiversity research.
He served as an editor on top journals such as Biological Conservation and Conservation Biology, and co-authored several books.
Said colleague and department head Paul Matsudaira: 'He was one of the intellectual leaders in the department, and raised awareness about ecology and climate change in Singapore.' He added that Prof Sodhi was a mentor to students, post-doctoral researchers and junior faculty staff.
Prof Sodhi, a Canadian citizen, was born near Chandigarh in India's Punjab region and grew up catching insects to study, said his daughter Ada, 21.
His doctoral research at Canada's University of Saskatchewan was on falcons, and when he started at NUS as an assistant professor in 1995, he focused on tropical rainforest birds.
But Prof Sodhi's research soon spanned every order of creature and every aspect of conservation biology.
His daily uniform included a baseball cap - frequently worn backwards - and bermuda shorts. On field trips, an ever-present, elderly pair of Swarovski binoculars dangled from his neck.
Former student Koh Lian Pin, now an assistant professor at ETH Zurich, said of Prof Sodhi: 'He once told me he didn't care if I danced naked as long as I got the job done.'
A Sikh and a staunch vegetarian, he baulked at eating unfamiliar dishes out in the field, preferring spaghetti from a can, but at home loved to cook and eat.
Assistant Professor David Bickford, who worked with Prof Sodhi as a post-doctoral researcher, then as a full-time teaching staff member, called his death 'a devastating loss'.
'He had these incredible insights about what the next frontier was, what questions to ask next,' he added.
Prof Sodhi was never afraid to speak his mind, Dr Bickford noted.
A 2010 paper he co-authored raised the ire of the Singapore Government by suggesting Singapore was the worst environmental offender among 178 countries, having lost most of its forests and more than half its birds to urbanisation.
The authors conceded that Singapore was something of an outlier as it is a city-state and ought to be compared with other cities such as Hong Kong.
Yesterday, condolences also poured in from as far afield as Canada, the United States and Australia, reading like a Who's Who of ecology.
On his website Conservation Bytes, University of Adelaide professor Corey Bradshaw called Prof Sodhi a 'top bloke', and said: 'He has probably been directly responsible for the protection of thousands of species that would otherwise no longer be with us.'
Stanford University ecologist Paul Ehrlich said: 'He was one of the great stars of conservation science, but also a wonderful (and funny) colleague and friend.'
Prof Sodhi is survived by his wife Charanjit, 52, and children Ada, an undergraduate, and Darwin, 18, who will enter university this year.
Yesterday, his friends, colleagues and former students put a memorial page of photos and anecdotes up on Facebook.
A funeral service will be held at Mandai Crematorium, today at 3.45pm.
