Abstract
AbstractWe assessed population status of large predators and their prey in the Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve (USTR), an almost unexplored Protected Area (PA) in Chhattisgarh State, Central India. Our total effort of 976 km walked on 108 spatially replicated line transects yielded low densities for wild ungulates (8.46 ± 2.1 SE individuals/km2) compared to other PAs in this region. Camera trap surveys with total effort of 3004 trap nights generated 37 photo‐captures of only two individual tigers, while population and densities for leopards (22.03 ± 0.19 SE individuals and 1.56 ± 0.36 SE/100 km2) and striped hyenas (18.18 ± 0.45 SE individuals and 1.69 ± 0.43 SE/100 km2), were quite low too. Predators and prey in USTR demonstrated temporal avoidance of human presence, which could be linked to anthropogenic intrusions across the reserve. Therefore, simultaneous implementations of alternate livelihood‐based strategies and voluntary village rehabilitations along with efficient legal enforcements are urgently needed to mitigate such a critical conservation crisis in USTR.
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