General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). Srivastava asked him to undertake a research study and offered to pay for his scientific assistants. Humayun undertook a three-year research project titled 'Determination of Ecological Disturbances in Agricultural and Adjoining Lands Caused by the Removal of Rana tigrina and Rana hexadactyla for Export' as the Principal Investigator. The research project was undertaken through the BNHS in the rice fields of Thane and Colaba and a frog-processing factory at Karjat. An examination of the contents obtained from the stomachs of frogs revealed that ninety percent of their food consisted of crabs, insects, and the larvae of insects, all of which harmed the rice crop. Based on the study, a paper 'On the Export of Frogs' Legs from India' was published in the Journal of the BNHS. In 1979, a Parliamentary Committee examined a report based on the study and asked Dr Sálim Ali, then a Member of the Rajya Sabha, if a ban on the export of frogs' legs was feasible. Dr Sálim Ali supported the ban, which was ultimately recommended by the committee. All frogs of the genus Rana are now protected under Schedule IV of the Wildlife Protection Act 1972. Humayun was also concerned about the cruelty practiced in the killing of these frogs. The ban had its detractors, who believed that frogs and toads did not impact the population of insects and pests significantly. Even after the ban was imposed, Humayun was vigilant about the ban being lifted temporarily or permanently. Conservation of grey junglefowl Another species Humayun helped conserve in Bombay was the grey junglefowl. Its feathers were being sent mostly to the United States by post in the late 1940s. On being informed about a consignment of grey junglefowl feathers being dispatched from Calcutta, he contacted the Audubon Society in the US. The receivers of the parcel were prosecuted on three counts and fined $10,000 on each. This considerably reduced the dispatch of the feathers from India. Differences with Sálim Ali The scientific opinions of Sálim Ali and Humayun Abdulali would frequently differ and they would also often disagree with each other matters such as the style of functioning of the Society. The former was interested in ecology and field ornithology, the latter on taxonomy and the collection. The two came to loggerheads over the topic of the allotment of funds to the Society's bird-ringing project.