Spatial variation in leopard (Panthera pardus) site use across a gradient of anthropogenic pressure in Tanzania's Ruaha landscape

Abstract

Understanding large carnivore occurrence patterns in anthropogenic landscapes adjacent to protected areas is central to developing actions for species conservation in an increasingly human-dominated world. Among large carnivores, leopards (Panthera pardus) are the most widely distributed felid. Leopards occupying anthropogenic landscapes frequently come into conflict with humans, which often results in leopard mortality. Leopards’ use of anthropogenic landscapes, and their frequent involvement with conflict, make them an insightful species for understanding the determinants of carnivore occurrence across human-dominated habitats. We evaluated the spatial variation in leopard site use across a multiple-use landscape in Tanzania’s Ruaha landscape. Our study region encompassed i) Ruaha National Park, where human activities were restricted and sport hunting was prohibited; ii) the Pawaga-Idodi Wildlife Management Area, where wildlife sport hunting, wildlife poaching, and illegal pastoralism all occurred at relatively low levels; and iii) surrounding village lands where carnivores and other wildlife were frequently exposed to human-carnivore conflict related-killings and agricultural habitat conversion and development. We investigated leopard occurrence across the study region via an extensive camera trapping network. We estimated site use as a function of environmental (i.e. habitat and anthropogenic) variables using occupancy models within a Bayesian framework. We observed a steady decline in leopard site use with downgrading protected area status from the national park to the Wildlife Management Area and village lands. Our findings suggest that human-related activities such as increased livestock presence and proximity to human households exerted stronger influence than prey availability on leopard site use, and were the major limiting factors of leopard distribution across the gradient of human pressure, especially in the village lands outside Ruaha National Park. Overall, our study provides valuable information about the determinants of spatial distribution of leopards in human-dominated landscapes that can help inform conservation strategies in the borderlands adjacent to protected areas.

Land‐sharing potential of large carnivores in human‐modified landscapes of western India

“…Such expansion of urban environments is expected to gain momentum in our study landscape. While urban landscapes may sometimes favor carnivore presence, as with the coyote Canis latrans and puma Puma concolor in North America (Gehrt et al, ) and the spotted hyena Crocuta crocuta and African wolf Canis anthus in Ethiopia (Yirga et al, ), these may also be avoided due to factors like hunting pressure (Abade et al, ). All three large carnivores in our study demonstrated statistical avoidance of urbanscapes, this effect being weaker for leopards compared to wolves and hyenas.…”

The relative effects of prey availability, anthropogenic pressure and environmental variables on lion (Panthera leo) site use in Tanzania's Ruaha landscape during the dry season

“…Trophy hunting of wildlife is prohibited within RNP and in the surrounding village lands, but is permitted in the Game Reserves and in limited sections of the WMA. In the village lands, which contains over 60 000 people across 22 villages, carnivores are exposed to various sources of anthropogenic disturbance and mortality, including habitat conversions, intense human–carnivore conflict, bushmeat snaring and killings for body parts (Abade et al ., ). Human livelihood is primarily based on agriculture and domestic livestock rearing.…”

“…The CTs set up and trail placement followed the methodology described in Abade et al . (). We used a pseudostratified method for deploying our CTs, ensuring a minimum 1.5–2 km distance between stations, and 15–20 km distance between sampling areas in 2015.…”

“…We pooled lion occurrence data and analysed them in a single‐season framework, as previous studies have found similar lion and other large carnivore detection and occupancy rates across dry seasons in Ruaha (Cusack et al ., ; Abade et al ., ). We collapsed the temporal sampling extent into 7‐day bin intervals across a 32‐week survey (~210 days) period.…”

“…We calculated a temporal catch‐per unit effort (CPUE) index of prey biomass for each CTs based on the number of independent records (>5 min (Burton et al ., ; Abade et al ., ) for all large‐ and medium‐bodied wild prey photographed during the survey. The principle behind CPUE is that the proportional representation the catch from a population should increase when population density or effort increases (Seber, ).…”