Distribution and abundance of Amur tiger, Amur leopard and their un-gulate prey in Hunchun National Nature Reserve, Jilin

Abstract

The Hunchun National Nature Reserve (HNNR) serves as core habitat for both Amur tiger (Pan- thera tigris altaica) and Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) in Northeast China. To investigate the relative abundance of wildlife and human disturbance within the reserve, we analyzed images from a moni- toring network of 83 camera traps deployed between April and June of 2013 in HNNR. Among the 6,060 to- tal trap nights, 18 species of mammals were detected from the images, including four Mustelids, three Felids, two species each from Canidae, Cervidae and Sciuridae, and one species each from Suidae, Ursidae, Mos- chidae, Erinaceidae and Leporidae, respectively. Cameras photographed 11 tigers and 13 leopards. Relative abundance index (RAI) of tigers (0.84) was higher than that of leopards (0.48). RAIs of ungulates, from high to low, were sika deer (Cervus nippon) (2.18), Siberian roe deer (Capreolus pygargus) (1.53) and wild boar (Sus scrofa) (0.92). RAI of human activities (40.64) and livestock grazing (2.76) were both significantly higher than animal species. The data also indicated that tigers and sika deer were mainly restricted to the core zone of HNNR and that their abundance was lower in the community-based natural resource management