Population density and abundance of sympatric large carnivores in the lowland tropical evergreen forest of Indian Eastern Himalayas

Abstract

Low density occurrence of large carnivore species and direct hunting of predators and prey make carnivore conservation complex. Vital baseline information on population status of large carnivores is still deficient in most forests of eastern Himalaya, which are known to be the biodiversity hotspots. To fill this information gap, we estimated the large carnivore population status and abundance in an intricate eastern Himalayan lowland tropical forest in Pakke Tiger Reserve, Arunachal Pradesh. Population status and abundance estimates of tigers and leopards were made through individual identification using closed capture-recapture sampling. To estimate the dhole abundance photographic encounter rate was used. For individually non-identifiable species photographic rate seemed to correlate well with animal abundance. The estimated tiger and leopard density through 1/2 MMDM was 2.14±0.04/100km2 and 2.99±1.13/100km2 respectively. Maximum likelihood estimates shows density of tiger 1.86±0.7 and for leopard 2.82±1.2.The estimated dhole abundance was (N) 10.6±0.94, and density 6.62±0.58 individuals in 100km2. Further, occupancy estimation of large carnivores may be tried along with assessing the comparative efficacy of other population estimation methods to establish better monitoring methods for this region.