Systematic Camera trapping on the Barandabhar Corridor Forest recorded the presence of the endangered Wild Dog/Dhole in the area. A total of 1320 camera trap night efforts were conducted in the area in two blocks from 15th Dec 2015 to 20th Jan 2016. A single picture of dhole was captured and was sympatric with other large carnivores like tiger Panthera tigris tigris, leopard P. pardus, and golden jackal Canis aureus. This first record of Dhole outside the National Park opened a new gate for officials, wildlife conservationist, scientific communities, managers to think about its conservation. It also adds the proof of the healthy functionality of this corridor.

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creat ive Commo ns Attri bution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Long term monitoring of bird species was conducted in Barandabhar Corridor Forest, one of the important bird areas of Nepal (IBA). Bird species were identified by the point count method in transect surveys in two-time frames from 2002–2012 and 2015–2016 to obtain the bird species list. We compared our bird list with previously published (after 2000) checklists and compiled the updated checklist of birds of Barandabhar Corridor Forest. We documented 372 bird species belonging to 80 families in Barandabhar, including five Critically Endangered, three Endangered, eight Vulnerable, and 15 Near Threatened species. The Accipitridae family included the highest number of species (n= 32), followed by Muscicapidae (n= 30) and Anatidae (n= 18). Approximately, half of the total confirmed bird species were insectivorous. The list included 63% resident, 27% winter migratory, 7.5% summer migratory, and 2.9% passage migrant species. According to the habitat type, there were 181 species of forest, 74 species of wetland, 24 species of grassland, 70 species of open field, and 23 species of partially wetland birds. This updated checklist of bird species will serve as a reference guide for bird watchers, biodiversity researchers, and support managers for conservation effort; and can be used to track any changes in the composition of bird species in the future.

Conservation of large carnivores like leopards requires large and interconnected habitats. Despite the wide geographic range of the leopard globally, only 17% of their habitat is within protected areas. In Nepal, leopards are distributed widely across the country but their status is not adequately studied which compromised the necessary conservation attention for the species. This study carried out sign-based occupancy survey across the Chure (the Himalayan foothills) range (~19,000 km2) to understand the habitat occupancy of leopards along with the covariates affecting their presence. The model-averaged leopard occupancy in the Chure range was 0.5732 (0.0082 SD) with a detection probability of 0.2554 (0.1142 SE). The top model included wild boar, ruggedness, presence of livestock and human population density as covariates. The β coefficient estimate from the model indicated the wild boar was the primary covariate contributing positively to the leopard occupancy followed by the presence of livestock, ruggedness and human population density. The detection probability of leopard was higher outside the protected areas, less in the densely vegetated areas, and higher in the area where there is a presence of livestock. Enhanced law enforcement and mass awareness activities are necessary to reduce poaching/killing of wild ungulates and leopard in the Chure range and to increase leopard occupancy. In addition, maintaining a sufficient natural prey base can contribute to minimize the livestock depredation and hence, decrease the human-leopard conflict in the Chure range.

The systematic study in 2015 and 2016 documented the first camera trap image of the Crab-eating Mongoose Herpestes urva in Barandabhar Corridor Forest in Chitwan, Nepal.  The corridor was divided into 88 grids, each of 1km by 1km.  A pair of cameras was placed for 15 nights in each grid and the total camera trap night effort was 2,640.  There were two separate events capturing three independent images and five separate events capturing seven independent images of the Crab-eating Mongoose in 2015 and 2016, respectively.  Photo capture rate in camera traps were 0.01 and 0.03 respectively in 2015 and 2016.  The presence of this species opens new scope for wildlife professionals and scientific communities to take further steps for its conservation.