Abstract
AbstractThe conservation of large carnivores in human-dominated landscapes needs to be reconciled with the safety of humans and domestic animals. This is especially true for the leopard Panthera pardus, which occurs extensively in agricultural landscapes and remnant forest tracts embedded within peri-urban areas such as Kathmandu district in Nepal. We carried out interviews in 321 households in this district to determine the extent of leopard habitat use and predation on domestic animals (dogs and goats) during October 2015–April 2016. We used multi-state occupancy models, and estimated probabilities of leopard habitat use (Ψ1) and predation on domestic animals (Ψ2) as a function of covariates, while accounting for imperfect detection. Our findings indicate that the rapidly urbanizing outskirts of Kathmandu city are used extensively by leopards. The estimated probability of fine-scale habitat use in 2 km2 sample units was 0.96 ± SE 0.05 and the probability of predation on domestic animals was 0.76 ± SE 0.15. Leopard attacks occurred in areas with high vegetation cover and abundant goats. Addressing the problem of leopard attacks on domestic animals will require developing a comprehensive mitigation plan that includes educational activities to raise awareness, measures to address grievances of affected local communities, interventions to prevent attacks on livestock, compensation programmes, and rapid response teams to ensure human and animal welfare in conflict-prone areas. Land-use planning in these peri-urban landscapes needs to facilitate the safe sharing of space between people and leopards.
Highlights
Humans and large carnivores co-occur extensively where urban areas expand into or surround wildlife habitats (Zérah, )
Our finding that leopards occur extensively in areas with high human densities in Kathmandu district is of significance for a number of reasons
It establishes that this leopard population is well adapted to exploiting farmlands and human settlements in a densely populated landscape, with near-ubiquitous occurrence over the study area
Summary
Humans and large carnivores co-occur extensively where urban areas expand into or surround wildlife habitats (Zérah, ). The conservation of large carnivores presents a conundrum for wildlife managers and local administrators who are tasked with protecting wildlife and ensuring the safety of local communities (Allendorf, ). This task is especially challenging when carnivores occur on privately owned land (Enserink & Vogel, ), where there is an elevated risk of negative interactions with people (Nyhus & Tilson, ). There are many drivers for leopard occurrence in human-dominated landscapes, including habitat fragmentation, wild prey depletion, attraction to domestic animals as easy prey and competitive displacement as a result of inter- or intra-species interactions (Seidensticker, ; Odden et al, ; Ripple et al, ). Leopards readily adapt to prey on domestic animals, dogs, which may comprise as much as % of their diet (Karanth & Sunquist, ; Edgaonkar & Chellam, ; Dickman & Marker, ; Athreya et al, ; Kumbhojkar et al, )
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