Numerous protected areas (PAs) have been created worldwide to safeguard wildlife and other natural resources from anthropogenic threats such as habitat destruction and bushmeat hunting. However, conservation efforts in many tropical PAs are still inadequate, revealing deficiencies in management effectiveness. It is therefore important to quantify how different protection regimes impact wildlife within PAs. We investigated the differences between forest mammal communities in two ecologically comparable PAs in the Udzungwa Mountains (Tanzania) with contrasting management regimes. One is a well‐protected national park with efficient law enforcement; the other has suffered decades of inadequate protection, mainly resulting in high levels of illegal hunting. Using camera‐trapping data, we assessed the target communities in terms of species richness, functional composition (i.e. proportions of trophic guilds) and species‐specific occurrences, all while accounting for imperfect detection. We found striking differences between the two mammal communities: lower species richness, alteration in the trophic structure and reduced occurrence probabilities for most species in the forest with high disturbance. The difference in occurrence probability between the two PAs tended to be highest for larger‐bodied species. Our results show that strictly enforced legal protection is required to maintain diverse mammal communities in tropical forests under ever‐increasing anthropogenic threats. While PAs are the cornerstone of efforts to conserve tropical biodiversity, the future of biodiversity within them is closely tied to the effectiveness of enforcement.
Understanding the impact of livestock on native wildlife is of increasing conservation relevance. For the Vulnerable snow leopard Panthera uncia, wild prey reduction, intensifying human–wildlife conflicts and retaliatory killings are severe threats potentially exacerbated by the presence of livestock. Elucidating patterns of co-occurrence of snow leopards, wild ungulate prey, and livestock, can be used to assess the compatibility of pastoralism with conservation. We used camera trapping to study the interactions of livestock, Siberian ibex Capra sibirica and snow leopards in a national park in the Altai mountains, Mongolia. We obtained 494 detections of wild mammals and 912 of domestic ungulates, dogs and humans. Snow leopards and Siberian ibex were recorded 14 and 33 times, respectively. Co-occurrence modelling showed that livestock had a higher estimated occupancy (0.65) than ibex, whose occupancy was lower in the presence of livestock (0.11) than in its absence (0.34–0.35 depending on scenarios modelled). Snow leopard occupancy did not appear to be affected by the presence of livestock or ibex but the robustness of such inference was limited by uncertainty around the estimates. Although our sampling at presumed snow leopard passing sites may have led to fewer ibex detections, results indicate that livestock may displace wild ungulates, but may not directly affect the occurrence of snow leopards. Snow leopards could still be threatened by livestock, as overstocking can trigger human–carnivore conflicts and hamper the conservation of large carnivores. Further research is needed to assess the generality and strength of our results.
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