Multi-Scale Spatial Prediction of Wild Boar Damage Risk in Hunchun: A Key Tiger Range in China.

Yongchao Jin,Guangdao Bao,Ting Liu,Xinhai Li,Hong Yan,Weiyao Kong,Qiongfang Ma,Hongfei Zou,Minghai Zhang

doi:10.3390/ani11041012

Abstract

Simple SummarySpatial distribution of wild boar damage risk is important and can be informative to wildlife habitat management. Hunchun is an important active area of Siberian tiger in China. The wild boar damage has brought barriers to the conservation and management of the Siberian tiger in this region. We predicted the spatial distribution of wild boar damage risk in Hunchun in terms of home range and feeding sites scales, and explored the spatial interaction between tiger habitats and the damage risk of wild boar. The results show the distance to the forest edge is an important factor affecting the wild boar damage, and 38.68% of the high-risk areas are overlapped with tiger habitats in Hunchun. Therefore, precise and differentiated management strategies should be adopted in the management of wild boar population.Hunchun, a typical area suffering wild boar (Sus scrofa) damage, is an important region for the Siberian Tiger (Panthera tigris) in China. By incorporating the maximum entropy model with 22 variables in the home range scale (12 variables) and in the feeding site scale (10 variables), we predicted wild boar damage risks in this area of China and analyzed how spatial factors influence damage risk. Damage risk was found to be high in areas close to the forest edge, areas with a higher forest cover and lower to medium deciduous forest proportion, low road density, and a medium river density and farmland proportion. The proportion of farmland which was identified as being in the high damage risk zone was 23.55%, of which 38.68% was within the habitat area of the Siberian Tiger. Finally, we propose wild boar damage prevention based on different management goals.

Highlights

We found that damages by wild boars mainly occurred in farmland, of which 23.55% are at a high risk (Figure 3)
Accurate monitoring of the wild boar population would be necessary in these areas to ensure that preventative measures are formulated in correspondence with their population dynamics
Farmers in the high-risk zones should be notified so they can avoid planting cash crops favored by wild boars, and precise population monitoring is required in those areas to ensure corresponding prevention strategies based on population dynamics

Summary

Introduction

Issues relating to damage due to wild boars (Sus scrofa) have become significant areas for wildlife management [1,2,3,4]. Management practices to control crop damage include wild boar hunting [12,13], providing available food resources in the forest [12,14], erecting fences to exclude the animals [15], using chemical repellents [16], and positioning devices to frighten away the animals [17]. A very important factor in human–wild boar conflict management, provides basic information for management strategies, and it aids in explaining how spatial factors influence damage occurrence mechanisms [4,18]. The majority of studies relating to wild boar damage have used a single spatial scale; studies involving multiple spatial scales require further investigation

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion