Since the 1960s India has experienced a 194% increase in its human population alongside rapid economic growth, which has negatively affected mammal species and their habitats (Madhusudan & Mishra, Reference Madhusudan, Mishra, Saberwal and Rangarajan2003 Das et al., Reference Das, Krishnaswamy, Bawa, Kiran, Srinivas, Kumar and Karanth2006 Singh & Bagchi, Reference Singh and Bagchi2013).
Understanding threats to large mammals and determining their occurrence and changes in distribution are thus important for conservation planning at large spatial scales (MacKenzie et al., Reference MacKenzie, Nichols, Royle, Pollock, Bailey and Hines2006 Karanth et al., Reference Karanth, Nichols, Hines, Karanth and Christensen2009 Taubmann et al., Reference Taubmann, Sharma, Uulu, Hines and Mishra2016). Large home ranges and habitat specificity tend to make large mammals vulnerable to range contraction and extinction (Ceballos et al., Reference Ceballos, Ehrlich, Soberón, Salazar and Fay2005 Michalski & Peres, Reference Michalski and Peres2005). Large mammals, especially apex carnivores, are often considered to be umbrella or flagship species for ecosystem conservation (Simberloff, Reference Simberloff1998). The distribution and habitats of some species have been negatively affected by human activities and developmental pressures globally (Sanderson et al., Reference Sanderson, Jaiteh, Levy, Redford, Wannebo and Woolmer2002). Our results underscore the importance of community-based, landscape-scale conservation approaches and caution against reliance on geophysical and opinion-based distribution maps that have been used to estimate national and global snow leopard ranges. Depredation by free-ranging dogs, and illegal hunting and wildlife trade were the other severe threats.
Migratory livestock grazing was pervasive across ibex distribution range and was the most widespread and serious conservation threat. Snow leopards and their wild prey were not restricted to protected areas, which encompassed only 17% of their distribution within the study area. Blue sheep and ibex had distinct distribution ranges. Although our surveys were conducted in areas within the presumed distribution range of the snow leopard, we found snow leopards were using only 75% of the area (14,616 km 2). Probability of site use was similar across the two time periods for snow leopards, blue sheep and ibex, whereas for wild prey (blue sheep and ibex combined) overall there was an 8% contraction. We also conducted a threat assessment for the recent period. Using recall-based key-informant interviews we estimated site use by snow leopards and their primary wild prey, blue sheep Pseudois nayaur and Asiatic ibex Capra sibirica, across two time periods (past: 1985–1992 recent: 2008–2012) in the state of Himachal Pradesh, India. Knowledge of the distribution and status of this elusive felid and its wild prey is limited. The snow leopard Panthera uncia is the top predator of the Central and South Asian mountains. Understanding species distributions, patterns of change and threats can form the basis for assessing the conservation status of elusive species that are difficult to survey.
0 kommentar(er)
