Big Cats Research Articles

Environmental Food and Cognitive Enrichment: A Study of Well-Being for Large Captive Felids at the Zoo of Goiânia

Environmental food and cognitive enrichment: a study of well-being for large captive cats at the Zoo of Goiânia In order to promote research and conservation of species, zoos tend to promote the modernization of this system, such as the insertion of larger and adequate enclosures, environmental enrichments, and above all the conservation of species. The main objectives of this work were: to promote environmental food and cognitive enrichment for big cats, in addition to discussing the validity of this enrichment model. The study animals were 12 animals: four tigers (Panthera tigris), three puma (Puma concolor), three jaguars (Panthera onca) and two lions (Panthera leo). We used a basic ethogram for the analysis of behaviors, in which there was an analysis of specific behavior: rhythm and inactivity. With the focal animal observation method, and using the “surprise box” enrichment method, which consisted of pieces of meat inside cardboard boxes, the statistical results obtained indicated that enrichment increased social, rest and physiological behavior, and slowed down and downtime. Each species reacted in a specific way to enrichments, with better results being noticed with the Panthera onca group, followed by the Panthera leo, Panthera tigris and Puma concolor group, respectively. The theory of the use of environmental enrichment was proven and compared with other works similar to this one.

Human-wildlife conflict in indigenous communities of the Nairi Awari Indigenous Territory of East Central Costa Rica

Abstract. Sáenz-Bolaños C, Fuller TK, Sievert L, Carrillo E. 2022. Human-wildlife conflict in indigenous communities of the Nairi Awari Indigenous Territory of East Central Costa Rica. Biodiversitas 23: 2238-2244. Human-wildlife conflict is essential for conservation because it is necessary to maintain the balance of requirements needed by humans and wildlife. Indigenous territories are not exempt from interactions with wildlife, and in this study, we focus on one indigenous territory of the Cabécar Indigenous Group of Costa Rica called Nairi Awari. We wanted to know which are the most common wildlife species, which interactions with these species the Nairi Awari consider negative, and what are the possible solutions to these interactions. To do this, we administered 24 semi-structured questionnaires to indigenous people from March-August 2019. The results showed 16 species as “problematic animals”, the jaguar (Panthera onca) being the most common, followed by hawks. Of the six problem categories identified, predation on poultry was the most cited category, but it raised fewer negative feelings among respondents than some other problems. Possible solutions to pig or cow predation, problems which most maddened respondents, included improved management (48%), scaring animals (12%), and killing big cats (16%). It is important to understand these perceptions in order to address future management to benefit conservation and human welfare. In particular, there is potential to work in the long term to improve the management of domestic animals.

Concealed weapons: A revised reconstruction of the facial anatomy and life appearance of the sabre-toothed cat Homotherium latidens (Felidae, Machairodontinae)

Homotherium is one of the sabre-toothed felid genera with a more extensive overlap in space and time with species of our own genus Homo, who must have been familiar with the animal, but now we only have its fossil remains to infer its life appearance. A revised reconstruction of the soft tissue and life appearance of Homotherium latidens is proposed here on the basis of new observations on the anatomy of extant carnivorans and a re-evaluation of the fairly preserved skull and mandible from the classical Late Pliocene site of Perrier (France). This fossil specimen provides some of the best information available about the morphology of the skull and mandible. Like other large early specimens of Homotherium, it has enormous upper canines relative to skull size and high-crowned enough to protrude beyond the lips in the living animal. On the other hand, observations of facial expressions in living big cats and dissected specimens show that, contrary to previous conclusions, the soft tissue around the mouth and the lower lip in particular can cover the upper canines of large felids, even when those are considerably high-crowned. Such observations lead us to propose a revised hypothesis about the life appearance of Homotherium and other sabre-toothed carnivorans, where the upper canines may have been covered in life when the mouth was completely closed.

Individual automatic detection and identification of big cats with the combination of different body parts.

The development of facial recognition technology has become an increasingly powerful tool in wild animal individual recognition. In this paper, we develop an automatic detection and recognition method with the combinations of body features of big cats based on the deep convolutional neural network (CNN). We collected dataset including 12244 images from 47 individual Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) at the Siberian Tiger Park by mobile phones and digital camera and 1940 images and videos of 12 individual wild Amur leopard (Panthera pardus orientalis) by infrared cameras. First, the single shot multibox detector algorithm is used to perform the automatic detection process of feature regions in each image. For the different feature regions of the image, like face stripe or spots, CNNs and multi-layer perceptron models were applied to automatically identify tiger and leopard individuals, independently. Our results show that the identification accuracy of Amur tiger can reach up to 93.27% for face front, 93.33% for right body stripe, and 93.46% for left body stripe. Furthermore, the combination of right face, left body stripe, and right body stripe achieves the highest accuracy rate, up to 95.55%. Consequently, the combination of different body parts can improve the individual identification accuracy. However, it is not the higher the number of body parts, the higher the accuracy rate. The combination model with 3 body parts has the highest accuracy. The identification accuracy of Amur leopard can reach up to 86.90% for face front, 89.13% for left body spots, and 88.33% for right body spots. The accuracy of different body parts combination is lower than the independent part. For wild Amur leopard, the combination of face with body spot part is not helpful for the improvement of identification accuracy. The most effective identification part is still the independent left or right body spot part. It can be applied in long-term monitoring of big cats, including big data analysis for animal behavior, and be helpful for the individual identification of other wildlife species.

Comparative Genomics of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) of Felids.

This review summarizes the current knowledge on the major histocompatibility complex (MHC) of the family Felidae. This family comprises an important domestic species, the cat, as well as a variety of free-living felids, including several endangered species. As such, the Felidae have the potential to be an informative model for studying different aspects of the biological functions of MHC genes, such as their role in disease mechanisms and adaptation to different environments, as well as the importance of genetic diversity for conservation issues in free-ranging or captive populations. Despite this potential, the current knowledge on the MHC in the family as a whole is fragmentary and based mostly on studies of the domestic cat and selected species of big cats. The overall structure of the domestic cat MHC is similar to other mammalian MHCs following the general scheme “centromere-MHC class I-MHC class III-MHC class II” with some differences in the gene contents. An unambiguously defined orthologue of the non-classical class I HLA-E gene has not been identified so far and the class II DQ and DP genes are missing or pseudogenized, respectively. A comparison with available genomes of other felids showed a generally high level of structural and sequence conservation of the MHC region. Very little and fragmentary information on in vitro and/or in vivo biological functions of felid MHC genes is available. So far, no association studies have indicated effects of MHC genetic diversity on a particular disease. No information is available on the role of MHC class I molecules in interactions with Natural Killer (NK) cell receptors or on the putative evolutionary interactions (co-evolution) of the underlying genes. A comparison of complex genomic regions encoding NK cell receptors (the Leukocyte Receptor Complex, LRC and the Natural Killer Cell Complex, NKC) in the available felid genomes showed a higher variability in the NKC compared to the LRC and the MHC regions. Studies of the genetic diversity of domestic cat populations and/or specific breeds have focused mainly on DRB genes. Not surprisingly, higher levels of MHC diversity were observed in stray cats compared to pure breeds, as evaluated by DRB sequencing as well as by MHC-linked microsatellite typing. Immunogenetic analysis in wild felids has only been performed on MHC class I and II loci in tigers, Namibian leopards and cheetahs. This information is important as part of current conservation tasks to assess the adaptive potential of endangered wild species at the human-wildlife interface, which will be essential for preserving biodiversity in a functional ecosystem.

Study on the zoning of Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park

The Amur tiger and Amur leopard are the flagship species for biodiversity protection, since the eighteenth congress, the Central Committee of the Communist Party and State Council of China attaches great importance to the tiger and leopard conservation. The 12th Meeting of the Central Finance and Economics Leading Group proposed to integrate the main habitat of giant pandas, establish the Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park and solve cross-regional and cross-sectoral institutional problems. The Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park is an important environment where big cats and humans live together. The management and zoning of the park should fully consider not only the habitat environment for tigers and leopards, but also the habitat environment and safety for human beings. Based on the overall consideration of sensitivity, endangerment and distribution characteristics of protected objects, migration and reproduction characteristics of tigers and leopards and other big cats, production and living utilization status of residents and social development needs, Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park proposed to adopt the Zoning-based Management and Control Mode for the first time. Through the factor extraction and analysis of the resources, environment, economic and social background in the region, the park uses GIS technology to extract and analyze the factors. It has been found that, according to the three principles of ecosystem, integrity, authenticity and coordination of protection and development, the park mainly aims to implement differential control over human activities, and the protection mechanism divides the control zones. The Zoning-based Management and Control Mode. The Zoning control enables the park to properly handle the relationship between the protection of the habitat of Amur tigers and Amur leopards and the maintenance of border security and stability, the production and life of indigenous residents. It also can make the park realize the harmonious coexistence and common development between man and nature.

Effects of reduced mobility on trabecular bone density in captive big cats.

Bone responds to elevated mechanical loading by increasing in mass and density. Therefore, wild animals should exhibit greater skeletal mass and density than captive conspecifics. This expectation is pertinent to testing bone functional adaptation theories and to comparative studies, which commonly use skeletal remains that combine zoo and wild-caught specimens. Conservationists are also interested in the effects of captivity on bone morphology as it may influence rewilding success. We compared trabecular bone volume fraction (BVF) between wild and captive mountain lions, cheetahs, leopards and jaguars. We found significantly greater BVF in wild than in captive felids. Effects of captivity were more marked in the humerus than in the femur. A ratio of humeral/femoral BVF was also lower in captive animals and showed a positive relationship to home range size in wild animals. Results are consistent with greater forelimb than hindlimb loading during terrestrial travel, and possibly reduced loading of the forelimb associated with lack of predatory behaviour in captive animals. Thus, captivity among felids has general effects on BVF in the postcranial skeleton and location-specific effects related to limb use. Caution should be exercised when identifying skeletal specimens for use in comparative studies and when rearing animals for conservation purposes.

Why Are Enrichment Practices in Zoos Difficult to Implement Effectively?

Simple SummaryZookeepers often introduce enrichment practices in which they provide animals with diverse stimuli and challenges to stimulate mental and physical activity, but enrichment can be difficult to implement and the enrichment used in zoos is not always effective at improving animal welfare. Limited information is available on how zookeepers apply enrichment practices in zoos. To identify some of the reasons that zoos cannot always provide effective enrichment, we interviewed keepers across multiple zoos. Keepers that work with big cats were deemed particularly well suited to the study, given the extensive recommendations in the literature for this group of animals in zoos. We discovered that many impediments obstructed the capacity of zookeepers to enrich animals effectively, such as conflicting priorities, uncertainty about which enrichment practices are effective, and concerns about the perceptions of visitors. To illustrate, zoos often impose routines for keepers to address more immediate and visible problems, such as sick animals or visitors who do not like unnatural objects in the enclosure. Hence, the enrichment and stimulation of animals is not always perceived as important or pressing and, therefore, may be deferred or neglected. We suggest that greater clarity and increased transparency on the objectives and means of assessing enrichment could curb confusion surrounding enrichment practices in zoos.The good intentions of zoos to introduce enrichment practices that stimulate animals mentally and physically are not always achievable. Changes to the policies and procedures in organisations are difficult to fulfil for a range of reasons frequently investigated in change management literature. The implementation of these changes can be the source of ineffective attempts to generate positive interventions in organisations. In this study, we investigate whether interventions to improve animal management in zoos through enrichment are subject to implementation impediments. Qualitative data gathered from interviews with 23 keepers working with big cats across 12 zoos globally provided valuable insights into the barriers and enablers to the implementation of enrichment. Keepers participated voluntarily and worked in accredited zoos across Australia, New Zealand, Europe, south-east Asia, South Africa, and the United States of America. Thematic analysis of the data revealed five key themes that described some of the challenges zoos and keepers experience when implementing enrichment for big cats, in their words: “let’s just be cautious”, “purely surviving”, “struggle to understand the goal”, “can’t always provide what you should”, and “judge the effectiveness”. These themes provide additional insights into potential areas for improvement, including greater attention to the benefits of enrichment for animal mental health and increased transparency around enrichment objectives in zoos.

Muscular anatomy of the forelimb of tiger (Panthera tigris).

Dissection reports of large cats (family Felidae) have been published since the late 19th century. These reports generally describe the findings in words, show drawings of the dissection, and usually include some masses of muscles, but often neglect to provide muscle maps showing the precise location of bony origins and insertions. Although these early reports can be highly useful, the absence of visual depictions of muscle attachment sites makes it difficult to compare muscle origins and insertions in living taxa and especially to reconstruct muscle attachments in fossil taxa. Recently, more muscle maps have been published in the primary literature, but those for large cats are still limited. Here, we describe the muscular anatomy of the forelimb of the tiger (Panthera tigris), and compare muscle origins, insertions, and relative muscle masses to other felids to identify differences that may reflect functional adaptations. Our results reiterate the conservative nature of felid anatomy across body sizes and behavioral categories. We find that pantherines have relatively smaller shoulder muscle masses, and relatively larger muscles of the caudal brachium, pronators, and supinators than felines. The muscular anatomy of the tiger shows several modifications that may reflect an adaptation to terrestrial locomotion and a preference for large prey. These include in general a relatively large m. supraspinatus (shoulder flexion), an expanded origin for m. triceps brachii caput longum, and relatively large m. triceps brachii caput laterale (elbow extension), as well as relatively large mm. brachioradialis, abductor digiti I longus, and abductor digiti V. Muscle groups that are well developed in scansorial taxa are not well developed in the tiger, including muscles of the cranial compartment of the brachium and antebrachium, and m. anconeus. Overall, the musculature of the tiger strongly resembles that of the lion (Panthera leo), another large-bodied terrestrial large-prey specialist.

Linking the roles of personality and stress physiology for managing the welfare of captive big cats

AbstractAnimal welfare is important for the humane treatment of animals under our care. Zoos and rescue centres manage various charismatic animals, such as big cats, with limited resources. It is therefore essential for caretakers to understand the needs of an individual big cat to ensure its welfare. However, these needs may differ due to a big cat's personality, which may be identified by its coping style in a stressful situation. In addition, stress is one of the major factors affecting animal welfare. There is limited evidence showing strong associations between personality and stress physiology in big cats. This review focuses on the integration of personality and stress physiology of captive big cats, to highlight possible improvements in their husbandry. Our review identifies key factors that may influence big cat responses to stressors. These influencing factors include: i) social interactions; ii) environment; iii) life history and evolutionary traits; iv) genetics; and v) health. The first two factors are relatively well covered in the literature; however, the final three are potentially very promising avenues for future research to better understand how we can improve big cat welfare.

The Winner Takes it All: Risk Factors and Bayesian Modelling of the Probability of Success in Escaping from Big Cat Predation.

Simple SummaryPredation is a complex behavioural interaction that is conditioned by biotic and abiotic factors. In their struggle for survival, the agents participating in the hunt interaction adapt their strategies seeking an opposite interest which leads to the same outcome, success in surviving. Predator/prey interaction data was obtained from on-line posted videos. The examination of records suggested that the species and age range of the predator, its status at the end of the hunt, the time elapsed between the sighting of its prey and the physical contact with it, the species of the prey and the relief of the land were determined success of escape of the prey in case of attack. The present study sheds light on the multietiological nature of predatory abilities and the strategies to fend off anti-predation strategies of the prey in big cats. The theoretical and empirical contents derived from this work will allow the design of environmental enrichment programs in captivity to be substantially improved by providing preys and enough space for them to express big cats predating strategies. The extrapolation of these results to domestic contexts may enable approaching selection strategies from two perspectives, with the aim to boost predating ability of domestic felids for pest control or to enhance defence in domestic ruminant prey from big cats.The individuals engaged in predation interactions modify their adaptation strategies to improve their efficiency to reach success in the fight for survival. This success is linked to either capturing prey (predator) or escaping (prey). Based on the graphic material available on digital platforms both of public and private access, this research aimed to evaluate the influence of those animal- and environment-dependent factors affecting the probability of successful escape of prey species in case of attack by big cats. Bayesian predictive analysis was performed to evaluate the outcomes derived from such factor combinations on the probability of successful escape. Predator species, age, status at the end of the hunting act, time lapse between first attention towards potential prey and first physical contact, prey species and the relief of the terrain, significantly conditioned (p < 0.05) escape success. Social cooperation in hunting may be more important in certain settings and for certain prey species than others. The most parsimonious model explained 36.5% of the variability in escaping success. These results can be useful to design translatable selective strategies not only seeking to boost predation abilities of domestic felids for pest control, but also, biological antipredator defence in potential domestic prey of big cats.

Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 from humans to a 16-year-old domestic cat with comorbidities in Pennsylvania, USA.

Background and ObjectivesSevere acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS‐CoV‐2), besides causing human infection, has been shown to naturally infect several susceptible animal species including large cats (tigers, lions, pumas, spotted leopards), dogs, cats, ferrets, gorillas and minks. Cats and minks are continuing to be the most reported species with SARS‐CoV‐2 infections among animals but it needs to be investigated further.Methods and ResultsWe report the detection of SARS‐CoV‐2 from a domestic cat that exhibited respiratory disease after being exposed to SARS‐CoV‐2 virus from humans in the same household. SARS‐CoV‐2 RNA was detected in two oropharyngeal swabs collected at two time points, 11 days apart; the first, when the cat was reported to be sick and the second, before euthanasia due to poor prognosis. The viral nucleic acid detected at two time points showed no genomic variation and resembled the clade GH circulating in humans in the United States. Clinical and pathological findings noted in this 16‐year‐old cat were consistent with respiratory and cardiac insufficiency.ConclusionsSARS‐CoV‐2 viral infection was likely an incidental clinical finding, as the virus was not detected in fixed lungs, heart, or kidney tissues. Only fresh lung tissue collected at necropsy showed the presence of viral nucleic acid, albeit at a very low level. Further research is needed to clarify the clinical course of SARS‐CoV‐2 in companion animals of advanced age and underlying cardiac disease.

Recapitulating whole genome based population genetic structure for Indian wild tigers through an ancestry informative marker panel.

Identification of genetic structure within wildlife populations have implications in their conservation and management. Accurately inferring population genetic structure requires whole-genome data across the geographical range of the species, which can be resource-intensive. A cheaper strategy is to employ a subset of markers that can efficiently recapitulate the population genetic structure inferred by the whole genome data. Such ancestry informative markers (AIMs), have rarely been developed for endangered species such as tigers utilizing single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). Here, we first identify the population structure of the Indian tiger using whole-genome sequences and then develop an AIMs panel with a minimum number of SNPs that can recapitulate this structure. We identified four population clusters of Indian tigers with North-East, North-West, and South Indian tigers forming three separate groups, and Terai and Central Indian tigers forming a single cluster. To evaluate the robustness of our AIMs, we applied it to a separate dataset of tigers from across India. Out of 92 SNPs present in our AIMs panel, 49 were present in the new dataset. These 49 SNPs were sufficient to recapitulate the population genetic structure obtained from the whole genome data. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first-ever SNP-based AIMs panel for big cats, which can be used as a cost-effective alternative to whole-genome sequencing for detecting the biogeographical origin of Indian tigers. Our study can be used as a guideline for developing an AIMs panel for the management of other endangered species where obtaining whole genome sequences are difficult.

What factors relate with the activity synchronization intensity among big cats and their ungulate prey in Northeast China?

The activity synchronization rhythm is an important aspect of measuring interspecific interactions between predators and prey, and crucial for large carnivores conservation. However, little is known about what factors relate their activity synchronization dynamics. With the climate change and human society development, the spatial-temporal distribution and activity synchronized rhythm of large carnivores and their prey would inevitably be affected, which would further affect the adaptability of large carnivores and bring new challenges to their conservation. In this study, we hypothesized the ambient temperature and human activity would influence the activity synchronization intensity among Amur tiger, Amur leopard and ungulates (roe deer, sika deer and wild boar) through cross-correlation function and temporal niche overlap model based on the camera traps data. The result show that the activity rhythms of the five target species showed species and seasonal differences, the temporal niche overlaps between ungulates were normally higher than that between the cats and prey, the weakest overlap was observed between the two big cat species, and time-lags of similar rhythmic activity can reduce the temporal overlap pressures of species. Furthermore, we found that ambient temperature relate interspecific synchrony of roe deer-sika deer and roe deer-wild boar pairs at the daily scale. And at hourly scale, temperature and human activities exerted significantly positive or negative stresses on the interspecific activity synchronization of all target species, observed in all three seasons. Our study provides new insights on our understanding of the mechanisms by which sympatric predators and ungulate prey coexist and interact in view of temporal niche overlap, as well as how wildlife managers can manage the mammal assembly effectively. As the Amur tiger and leopard populations in China are being recovered quickly, the rapidly increasing predation pressure and limited environmental resources could have profound implications for the interaction and coexistence among these two large carnivores and their ungulate prey. Managers should strengthen the monitoring, and understand its causes and consequences, so as to develop effective protective measures.

Hunters, rangers, cougars, and jaguars: human and nonhuman territories at the Argentine-Brazilian border, 1960s-1990s.

This article aims to understand the role of territorial practices in the interaction between human and nonhuman animals. It focuses on the Iguazú and Iguaçu national parks, established by Argentina and Brazil in the 1930s as nature reserves bisected by an international boundary. In a setting where human-made boundaries overlay natural boundaries, qualitatively different spatial practices clash in the territorial encounters between cougars, jaguars, and humans. The article demonstrates how changes in the border practices of park officials, hunters, and big cats reshuffled the terms of these encounters. The article assesses when, where, and how these encounters between rangers, poachers, and big cats took place, showing how felids challenged the spatial placement and taxonomical categories attributed to them by humans.

Panthera onca (Linnaeus, 1758) from the late Pleistocene of Brazilian Intertropical Region: taxonomy, habitat, isotopic diet composition, and isotopic niche overlap with extinct faunivores

This paper focuses in the description, radiocarbon dating and isotopic analyses (δ13C, δ18O) of new fossils of Panthera onca from the late Pleistocene of the Brazilian Intertropical Region. This paper focuses on the paleoecology of this large cat and is of major importance to understand ecological niches in evolutionary time. Radiocarbon datings and stable isotope compositions (carbon and oxygen) were determined from the structural carbonate of enamel for two fossils of Panthera onca found in two caves in Bahia, Brazil. Isotopic data available of large faunivores and other extinct and extant herbivorous taxa from the late Pleistocene of the Brazilian Intertropical Region were used for paleoecological interpretations. Carbon and oxygen isotopic values from P. onca allow us to suggest that these individuals lived in arboreal savanna habitat between 26 and 33 kyr BP, could reach 209 kg and feed mainly on Nothrotherium maquinense, Tapirus terrestris and Alouatta sp., being a specialist. The isotopic niche overlap with Smilodon populator and Arctotherium wingei was high, while with Protocyon troglodytes was low. In the late Pleistocene P. onca probably suffer high ecological pressure by S. populator, while with A. wingei this could not occur, as this species could be mainly herbivorous.

Investigating Carnivore Guild Structure: Spatial and Temporal Relationships amongst Threatened Felids in Myanmar

The co-occurrence of felid species in Southeast Asia provides an unusual opportunity to investigate guild structure and the factors controlling it. Using camera-trap data, we quantified the space use, temporal activity, and multi-dimensional niche overlap of the tiger, clouded leopard, Asiatic golden cat, marbled cat, and leopard cat in the Htamanthi Wildlife Sanctuary, Myanmar. We hypothesised that the spatio-temporal behaviour of smaller cats would reflect the avoidance of the larger cats, and similar-sized guild members would partition their niches in space or time to reduce resource competition. Our approach involved modelling single-species occupancy, pairwise spatial overlap using Bayesian inference, activity overlap with kernel density estimation, and multivariate analyses. The felid assembly appeared to be partitioned mainly on a spatial rather than temporal dimension, and no significant evidence of mesopredator release was observed. Nonetheless, the temporal association between the three mesopredators was inversely related to the similarity in their body sizes. The largest niche differences in the use of space and time occurred between the three smallest species. This study offers new insight into carnivore guild assembly and adds substantially to knowledge of five of the least known felids of conservation concern.

Modelling Potential Distribution of Snow Leopards in Pamir, Northern Pakistan: Implications for Human–Snow Leopard Conflicts

The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) is a cryptic and rare big cat inhabiting Asia’s remote and harsh elevated areas. Its population has decreased across the globe for various reasons, including human–snow leopard conflicts (HSCs). Understanding the snow leopard’s distribution range and habitat interactions with human/livestock is essential for understanding the ecological context in which HSCs occur and thus gives insights into how to mitigate HSCs. In this study, a MaxEnt model predicted the snow leopard’s potential distribution and analyzed the land use/cover to determine the habitat interactions of snow leopards with human/livestock in Karakoram–Pamir, northern Pakistan. The results indicated an excellent model performance for predicting the species’ potential distribution. The variables with higher contributions to the model were the mean diurnal temperature range (51.7%), annual temperature range (18.5%), aspect (14.2%), and land cover (6.9%). The model predicted approximately 10% of the study area as a highly suitable habitat for snow leopards. Appropriate areas included those at an altitude ranging from 2721 to 4825 m, with a mean elevation of 3796.9 ± 432 m, overlapping between suitable snow leopard habitats and human presence. The human encroachment (human settlements and agriculture) in suitable snow leopard habitat increased by 115% between 2008 and 2018. Increasing encroachment and a clear overlap between snow leopard suitable habitat and human activities, signs of growing competition between wildlife and human/livestock for limited rangeland resources, may have contributed to increasing HSCs. A sound land use plan is needed to minimize overlaps between suitable snow leopard habitat and human presence to mitigate HSCs in the long run.

Life with big cats: local perceptions of big cat species

Land use change, agricultural and urban expansion, and anthropogenic climate change are the major drivers of biodiversity loss across the globe. Big cats (a casual term including species such as tigers, lions, mountain lions, jaguars, leopards, snow leopards, and cheetahs) are impacted by these global changes. As human settlement and activity increasingly overlap with big cat habitat, the frequency of human conflict over wildlife is rising, often precipitating direct costs to people living near big cats. Big cats are rare, they play many critical roles in the ecosystems they inhabit, and are often flagship conservation species because they are poster-charismatic megafauna. As many of the costs of conservation are borne by locals, local acceptance of big cats on the landscape is fundamental to the success of in-situ conservation of these species. Here, we explore this issue by conducting a systematic literature review of articles that directly measure local perceptions (or acceptance) of big cats quantitatively. We normalized all perception data so we could synthesize results across places and species. The final set of data included the views of 14 253 locals from 45 papers, interrogating five different question types on local perceptions of big cats. Across these studies, we found that locals generally hold neutral or slightly positive perceptions of big cats – particularly for tigers and mountain lions. On average, livestock owners have more negative perceptions of big cats compared to non-livestock owners. Geographically, there are large portions of big cat population ranges where no research on local perceptions exist. These results call for two things (1) rethinking the perception that locals largely hold negative views toward big cats across their ranges and (2) more systematic research across big cat species ranges to better understand local perceptions, what drives those perceptions, and how they impact the outcomes of conservation approaches.

Cattle Grazing Effects on Vegetation and Wild Ungulates in the Forest Ecosystem of a National Park in Northeastern China

There is evidence that cattle grazing in forests limits big cat abundance. There is concern, too, about competition with wild ungulate prey through bottom-up effects on vegetation. Hence, there have been calls to remove or control forest livestock grazing in aid of restoring endangered large carnivores and their prey. To help inform scientific debate and decision making, we explored cattle-vegetation-prey dynamics in Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park, northeast China and present a reappraisal of livestock grazing in the context of coexistence and an integrated approach to land use in China. Inside long-term forest grazing enclosures, wild boar (Sus scrofa) density increased with cattle density. Roe deer (Capreolus pygargus) density and occurrence probability of wild boar and roe deer were not influenced by cattle density. Wild ungulate densities were not related with the number of annual shoots, i.e., forage plant abundance. The presence/absence and abundance of annual shoots was not related with cattle density. Wild ungulate density had mixed associations with vegetation structure; arbor tree diameter at breast height (DBH) and habitat “openness” increased with cattle density. Finally, inside and outside enclosures had different vegetation characteristics and wild boar densities, while roe deer densities were equal. We conclude that cattle density and associated changes to vegetation have positive, negative, and neutral effects on two wild ungulate prey species. Each of these factors warrant consideration in evidence-based management decisions in regard to regulating ungulate community composition to support different large predators as preferred prey in core areas and corridors of habitats.