Free-ranging dogs (Canis familiaris) are a major conservation issue in the tropics and adopt many ecological roles, alternatively functioning as predators, prey, or competitors of wildlife in diverse environments. Dogs are also potential reservoirs of disease that can be transmitted to both wildlife and people. Therefore a range of management interventions have been suggested to control dog populations. In order to monitor interventions to decrease dog populations, estimates of their population size are important and such methods need to be time-and cost-effective. We describe here a potential method that uses natural marks on dogs along with counts of non-marked individuals in a mark-resight framework to estimate the abundance of free-ranging dogs in a suburban area in India. Using the logit-normal mixed effects estimator to incorporate the effects of individual resighting heterogeneity, we found a total (N j ) of 680.64 ± 34.06 (95% CI = 617.22 -751.35) dogs in the study area, with an overall mean resighting probability of 0.53 ± 0.03 (95% CI = 0.47 -0.58). This corresponds to a density estimate of 57 dogs km -2 (CI = 51 -63). Given that certain assumptions are met, this method may be useful to estimate abundance of dogs where other kinds of marks may be unavailable or impractical. This method may be applied to other species of feral animals as well, where some proportion of a population has distinct natural marks.Keywords: Natural marks, free-ranging, Canis familiaris, abundance, mark-resight Résumé Les chiens errants (Canis familiaris) sont un problème de conservation majeur dans les zones tropicales et peuvent adopter différents rôles écologiques, jouant tour à tour le rôle de prédateur, proie, ou compétiteur de la faune sauvage au sein de milieux divers. En outre, les chiens sont des réservoirs potentiels de maladies pouvant être transmises aux animaux sauvages comme à l'homme. De ce fait, plusieurs modes d'interventions ont été suggérés afin de contrôler les populations de chiens. Afin de suivre ces interventions, les estimations des leur populations de chiens sont importantes et doivent être effectuées de manière rentable économiquement et en termes de temps. Nous décrivons ici une méthode potentielle basée sur les marques naturelles identifiables de certains chiens et un comptage des individus non marqués en utilisant le cadre du marquageréobservation. Cela nous permet d'estimer l'abondance des chiens errants au sein de la banlieue d'une métropole indienne. En utilisant le test Logit-Normal à effets mixtes pour intégrer l'effet de l'hétérogénéité des réobservations individuelles, nous avons trouvé un total (N j ) de 680.64 ± 34.06 (95% CI = 617.22 -751.35) chiens au sein de la zone étudiée, avec une probabilité moyenne de réobservation de 0.53 ± 0.03 (95% CI = 0.47 -0.58). Cela correspond à une estimation de la densité de 57 chiens/km -2 (CI = 51 -63). Si les hypothèses de départ sont vérifiées, cette méthode pourrait être appliquée à d'autres espèces d'animaux féraux montrant une structure de p...
Conservation interventions in developing countries are frequently thwarted by socio-economic agendas, severely limiting the scope and rigor of biodiversity and habitat conservation. Very few ecological assessments incorporate human interests in conservation prioritization, creating asynchrony between planning and implementation. For conservation actions to be logistically feasible, multiple criteria including ecological, social, economic and administrative aspects must be considered. Understanding how these different dimensions interact spatially is also important for gauging the potential for conservation success. Here, we use a guild of select mammalian carnivores (wild canids and hyenas) in India to (i) generate distribution maps at the spatial scale of administrative sub-districts, that are relevant to management, (ii) examine ecological, social and biogeographic factors associated with their distribution, assess key threats, and identify areas important for their conservation, (iii) use prioritization tools for balancing habitat conservation, human needs and economic growth, and (iv) evaluate the spatial congruence between areas with high conservation potential, and areas currently in focus for protection efforts, conservation investments, and infrastructure development. We find that the current Protected Area system does not adequately cover or represent diverse habitats, that there is immense potential for States to increase financial investments towards alternative conservation strategies, and, most infrastructure projects may be potentially jeopardizing important carnivore habitats where the two overlap. Our framework allowed for identifying locations where conservation investments would lead to the highest benefits for carnivores as flagships, which also benefit other species across habitats. We make a case for re-evaluating how large-scale prioritization assessments are made, and for broadening the purview of conservation policies in India and other developing countries.
Fragmentation of native habitats is now a ubiquitous phenomenon affecting wildlife at various scales. We examined selection of den-sites (n = 26) by Indian foxes (Vulpes bengalensis) in a highly modified short-grassland landscape in central India (Jan-May, 2010). At the scale of the home-range, defined by an 800 m circular buffer around den sites, we examined the effect of land-cover edges and roads on selection of sites for denning using a distance-based approach. At the smaller den-area scale, defined by a 25 m x 25 m plot around den and paired available sites, the effect of microhabitat characteristics was examined using discrete-choice models. Indian foxes selected den-sites closer to native grasslands (t = -9.57, P < 0.001) and roads (t = -2.04, P = 0.05) than random at the home-range scale. At the smaller scale, abundance of rodents and higher visibility increased the odds of selection of a site by eight and four times respectively, indicating resource availability and predator avoidance to be important considerations for foxes. Indian foxes largely chose to den in human-made structures, indicated by the proportion of dens found in earthen bunds (0.69) and boulder piles (0.27) in the study area. With agricultural expansion and human modification threatening native short-grassland habitats, their conservation and effective management in human-dominated landscapes will benefit the Indian fox. The presence of some human-made structures within native grasslands would also be beneficial for this den-dependent species. We suggest future studies examine the impact of fragmentation and connectivity of grasslands on survival and reproductive success of the Indian fox.
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