Abstract. Mardaraj PC, Pirie TJ, Sethy J, Behera S. 2023. Community stance towards sloth bear (Melursus ursinus) conservation in Odisha, India. Biodiversitas 24: 2521-2526. The human dimension is an essential component of extensive carnivore management and conservation. People living in bear habitats often fear encounters with these animals, and negative interactions can significantly affect people's livelihoods, attitudes, and tolerance toward the conservation initiatives of bears. To investigate the effect of such interactions on people's attitudes and livelihoods, we surveyed 510 households through semi-structured interviews located around five reserve forests of the Nilgiri wildlife range in a coastal district of Odisha, India. Gender, education, dependency on the forest, and specifics of bear encounters were the parameters taken to know the villagers' attitudes toward bear conservation. The average age of respondents was 46 (17-88) years; 78.8% (n= 402) were male. There are 37.5% of the respondents below the poverty level with annual incomes less than $ 514 USD. The majority of respondents, 85%, showed favorable opinions regarding sloth bears (Melursus ursinus Shaw, 1791), with only 15% expressing a negative perception. Bears were encountered by 87% of the total participants, with 45% encountering a sloth bear weekly. The study identified that 82.9% of villagers were more likely to state sloth bears were problematic rest disagreed with it. The educated interviewer was strongly supporting bear conservation in that landscape. The perspectives of the villagers and their experiences on their adverse feeling toward the bears need to minimize through suggested participatory and community-based mitigation strategies for long time conservation of the sloth bear in the landscape.

Today, the most significant threats to mammal predators are habitat losses and anthropogenic pressure. Although sloth bears are widely distributed in India, there is still a risk of populations becoming fragmented and isolated. As a result of continuous habitat loss and degradation over the past century, sloth bear populations have steadily declined. They now exist only in isolated or fragmented habitats across the entire range. Therefore, it is necessary to conduct a habitat suitability analysis to determine these areas. The modeling was carried out using the maximum entropy method (Maxent version 3.4.3, November 2020) with presence data collected from 230 sample areas in the Nilgiri wildlife range of Balasore, eastern India. The average training AUC for the replicate runs is 0.984. The model is also evaluated according to the receiver operating characteristic value and jackknife test. Environmental variables contributing to the model were BIO-12 (annual precipitation), BIO-11 (annual mean temperature), DEM (digital elevation model), although the contribution level of terrain ruggedness index (TRI), forest cover (FC), human impact index (HII) and LULC are also there in the model. We also establish that the environmental variable Bio 12 (66%) significantly affects the distribution pattern of sloth bears. In contrast, the forest cover (0.4%) has a more negligible effect on the distribution pattern. A habitat suitability map of the sloth bear was created following the modeling process, and the usability of the model and the map was evaluated for sloth bear management plans. The sloth bear is intensively distributed in the western part of the study area. To conclude, the sloth bear is a notable mammal species whose habitat must be preserved.