Abstract
Land-use change has led to substantial range contractions for many species. Such contractions are particularly acute for wide-ranging large carnivores in Asia’s high altitude areas, which are marked by high spatiotemporal variability in resources. Current conservation planning for human-dominated landscapes often takes one of two main approaches: a “coexistence” (land sharing) approach or a “separation” (land sparing) approach. In this study, we evaluated the effects of land-use management on a guild of large carnivores in a montane ecosystem located in northeastern Iran. We used interview surveys to collect data on Persian leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor and grey wolf Canis lupus and modeled the areas occupied by these species in a Bayesian framework. After accounting for imperfect detection, we found that wolves had a higher probability of occupying the study area than leopards (82%; 95% CI 73–90% vs. 63%; 95% CI 53–73%). Importantly, each predator showed contrasting response to land-use management. National Parks (i.e. human-free areas) had a positive association with leopard occupancy (αNational Park = 2.56, 95% CI 0.22–5.77), in contrast to wolves, which displayed a negative association with National Parks (αNational Park = − 1.62, 95% CI − 2.29 to 0.31). An opposite pattern was observed for human-dominated areas (i.e. Protected Areas and Communal Lands), where occupancy was higher for wolves but lower for leopards. Our study suggests that to protect these large carnivores, a combination of land sharing and land sparing approaches is desirable within Iran montane landscapes. Any recovery program for big cats in Iranian mountains, and likely similar mountainous landscapes in west Asia, should take into account other sympatric carnivores and how they can affect adjacent human communities. For example, conflict mitigation and compensation efforts are required to include the guild of large carnivores, instead of solely targeting the charismatic big cats.
Highlights
Many of the world’s large carnivores have undergone substantial range contractions, especially in areas with high rural human population densities (Kabir et al 2017; Petracca et al 2018; Rasphone et al 2019)
In the context of Asia’s montane landscapes, a few empirical studies have evaluated these two approaches for big cats (Johansson et al 2016; Jiang et al 2017; Farhadinia et al 2018b); research conceptualizing the interaction of these approaches for guilds of large carnivores remains uncommon, in west Asia
We explored patterns of site occupancy for two sympatric carnivores in mountainous landscapes across three different land use management types in northeastern Iran
Summary
Many of the world’s large carnivores have undergone substantial range contractions, especially in areas with high rural human population densities (Kabir et al 2017; Petracca et al 2018; Rasphone et al 2019). In addition to establishing protected areas, understanding the spatial patterns of large carnivores beyond the protected areas boundaries is needed to adopt proper management approaches in human-dominated landscapes (Macdonald et al 2019; Mohammadi et al 2021). The “separation” (land sparing) model, which designates separate areas for human use and wildlife conservation, has been shown to be effective for a wide range of large carnivores (Packer et al 2013; Jiang et al 2017). Sparing extensive tracts of land for large carnivores is less plausible in many parts of the world, in dry and human-dominated landscape where these animals need to range widely to access unpredictable and spatially heterogeneous resources, notably prey and water (Kabir et al 2017; Farhadinia et al 2018b; Mohammadi et al 2021). In the context of Asia’s montane landscapes, a few empirical studies have evaluated these two approaches for big cats (Johansson et al 2016; Jiang et al 2017; Farhadinia et al 2018b); research conceptualizing the interaction of these approaches for guilds of large carnivores remains uncommon, in west Asia
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