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Abundance and activity of carnivores in two protected areas of semi-arid western India with varying top predator density and human impacts

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Abstract

Large carnivores are vulnerable to population decline due to their k-selected traits in fragmented human-dominated landscapes. In the semi-arid landscape of western India, tiger (top predator) populations went locally extinct from most of the forested ecosystems, while the mesopredators (leopards, hyenas, wolves) managed to survive in these mosaics of forest, agriculture, pasturelands, ravines, and human habitations. In this study, we used camera traps to survey two protected areas (PAs) in the semi-arid western Indian landscape—Mukundara (without tigers) and Ranthambhore (with high-density tiger population)—and compare the abundance and activity of mesopredators between sites to assess the effect of top predator presence on mesopredators. The carnivore community was more diverse in Ranthambhore (well-protected) than in the human disturbed habitats of Mukundara; however, the relative abundance of mesopredators was higher in Mukundara. Striped hyena density was estimated higher in Mukundara (40.6 ± 7.36/100 km2) than in Ranthambhore (9.3 ± 1.3/100 km2), while leopard density estimates were comparable (Mukundara, 10.9 ± 3.0/100 km2; Ranthambhore, 11.2 ± 1.6/100 km2). Temporal activities of carnivores in Mukundara indicated avoidance of human disturbance, while in Ranthambhore, it seemed primarily governed by competitive interactions between carnivores. Our findings are indicative of the mesopredator release hypothesis, where the number of mesopredators increased in the absence of top predator; however, the results are confounded by differential resource availability, human disturbance, and poaching levels between sites. The outcomes emphasised the importance of conserving habitat fragments (irrespective of charismatic species’ presence) in human-dominated landscapes to conserve carnivore populations. Conservation investments should focus on habitat protection, securing inviolate areas inside the PAs and restoring connectivity between PAs.

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Data availability

Species photo-captured in the camera traps are in Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act (1972) and prone to wildlife trade; therefore, precise locations cannot be made publicly available. All other data are either in the main paper or in the supplementary material.

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Acknowledgements

We thank the National Tiger Conservation Authority, Wildlife Institute of India, and Forest Department of Rajasthan for the necessary permission, support, and logistics. We want to thank all India Tiger Estimation team (2014) and our field assistants for assisting in data collection. We thank Vaishnavi Gussain for the map preparation.

Funding

This research was funded by the National Tiger Conservation Authority, Government of India (Grant released under NTCA AITE/2013–14).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Wildlife Institute of India, Chandrabani, Dehradun, 248001, Uttarakhand, India

    Kainat Latafat, Ayan Sadhu, Qamar Qureshi & Yadvendradev V. Jhala

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  1. Kainat Latafat
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Contributions

Yadvendradev V Jhala and Kainat Latafat conceptualised the study. Yadvendradev V Jhala and Qamar Qureshi supervised the study and arranged necessary permissions and funds. Kainat Latafat and Ayan Sadhu conducted the fieldwork. Kainat Latafat and Ayan Sadhu perform the data analyses. Kainat Latafat, Ayan Sadhu and Yadvendradev V Jhala drafted the manuscript. All authors reviewed and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yadvendradev V. Jhala.

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Latafat, K., Sadhu, A., Qureshi, Q. et al. Abundance and activity of carnivores in two protected areas of semi-arid western India with varying top predator density and human impacts. Eur J Wildl Res 69, 15 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10344-023-01643-9

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