Abstract
AbstractPolitical borders and natural boundaries of wildlife populations seldom coincide, often to the detriment of conservation objectives. Transnational monitoring of endangered carnivores is rare, but is necessary for accurate population monitoring and coordinated conservation policies. We investigate the benefits of collaboratively monitoring the abundance and survival of the critically endangered Amur leopard, which occurs as a single transboundary population across China and Russia. Country‐specific results overestimated abundance and were generally less precise compared to integrated monitoring estimates; the global population was similar in both years: 84 (70–108, 95% confidence interval). Uncertainty in country‐specific annual survival estimates were approximately twice the integrated estimates of 0.82 (0.69–0.91, 95% confidence limits). This collaborative effort provided a better understanding of Amur leopard population dynamics, represented a first step in building trust, and lead to cooperative agreements to coordinate conservation policies.
Highlights
Political borders and natural boundaries of wildlife populations seldom coincide, often to the detriment of conservation objectives
Track surveys suggest that most available habitat in southwest Primorye Province of Russia is inhabited by leopards (Hebblewhite et al, 2011; Pikunov, 2010), and most is protected by Land of the Leopard National Park (LLNP)
We observed extensive movement of individual leopards between China and Russia; across both years 38% of all leopards were observed in China but only about half of those (20%) were observed exclusively in China
Summary
Political borders and natural boundaries of wildlife populations seldom coincide, often to the detriment of conservation objectives. The impact of divided and uncoordinated monitoring and management of wildlife populations along political borders has recently received substantial attention (Bischof, Brøseth, & Gimenez, 2016; Ellison, 2014; Gervasi et al, 2016; Lambertucci et al, 2014; Linnell & Boitani, 2012; Linnell et al, 2016). Growing awareness of this problem has led to the recognition that border regions retain some of the best habitat for remnant populations of rare and endangered wildlife due to restricted public access (e.g., Sanderson et al, 2006). This mismatch between the scale of the ecological processes for large carnivores and the scale of their management and monitoring systems can obfuscate trends and dynamics of these populations (Gervasi et al, 2016), greatly hindering decision-making processes
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