UTTAR PRADESH JOURNAL OF ZOOLOGY

Human-wildlife conflict involving crop-foraging herbivores is a persistent challenge in agrarian landscapes, but the evidentiary basis for managing nilgai (Boselaphus tragocamelus) in India remains uneven. This critical narrative review evaluates research on nilgai crop depredation through an integrated ecological, agricultural and human-dimensions lens. Literature published from 1989 to 9 June 2026 was identified through live searches of accessible scholarly indexes, repositories and authoritative institutional sources, supplemented by citation searching and DOI-level bibliographic verification. Evidence was appraised according to study design, measurement validity, spatial and temporal coverage, species attribution, treatment of confounding and relevance to management. Field studies consistently show that nilgai exploit agricultural mosaics and can impose substantial losses at particular sites, yet national-scale estimates of damage are not defensible from current evidence. The strongest causal evidence comes from protected-versus-unprotected plot comparisons and repeated field measurements; perception surveys, compensation records and media reports are useful for understanding social salience and geographic signals but cannot substitute for direct loss estimation. Crop vulnerability varies with phenology, proximity to refuges, landscape structure and local species assemblages, while nocturnal crop use and behavioural plasticity complicate deterrence. The social burden extends beyond harvested yield to night guarding, safety risk, time loss, transaction costs and unequal exposure among households. Existing mitigation is dominated by guarding, barriers and reactive population-control proposals, but robust nilgai-specific effectiveness trials are scarce. Evidence from broader crop-raiding research indicates that interventions are context-dependent and require maintenance, collective action and explicit evaluation against controls. A shift from episodic removal towards adaptive landscape management is therefore warranted, combining standardised damage monitoring, targeted barriers, habitat and crop-risk planning, transparent compensation, and experimentally evaluated fertility or population-management options where justified. The principal research priority is a coordinated, multi-state evidence system that links nilgai abundance and movement to measured crop loss, household costs and intervention outcomes.