Guidelines for Telemetry Studies on Snow Leopards

Johansson, Örjan; Kachel, Shannon; Weckworth, Byron V.

doi:10.3390/ani12131663

Cited by 4 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…Capture details for each site are described in S1 File . Procedures followed closely those presented by Johansson et al [ 40 ]. Animals were live trapped between May 2013 and August 2019 using foot snares ( Table 1 ).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Seasonal space use and habitat selection of GPS collared snow leopards (Panthera uncia) in the Mongolian Altai range

Rosenbaum¹,

Poyarkov

Munkhtsog

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

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Although the home range and habitat selection of animal species is among the fundamental pieces of biological information collected by research projects during recent decades, published information on the snow leopard (Panthera uncia) home range is limited. The Altai Mountains of central Asia contain some of the largest and most important remaining conservation landscapes for snow leopards globally, but there is a limited understanding of the species’ ecology in this region. First, we used the data from 5 snow leopards equipped with GPS collars at four study sites in the Altai Mountains of Mongolia to broadly characterize patterns of home range use between 2013 and 2019. The data was used to calculate home range size from a 10 month period using three different estimators: minimum convex polygons (MCP), kernel density distributions (KDE), and local convex hulls (LoCoH). Second, ten data sets from 8 individual snow leopards were combined to cover all 12 months of a year and to generate a general additive mixed model of seasonal home range use and seasonal resource use. We found 1) large variation in home ranges between sites during the monitoring period ranging minimally between 26.1 and 395.3km2 (MCP); 2) Local convex hull home ranges were smaller compared to home ranges based on minimum convex polygons and kernels and yielded more biologically appropriate home range estimates; 3) monthly home ranges of males were larger than females; 4) female monthly home ranges decreased in summer, while male monthly range use remained stable throughout the year; and, 5) while both sexes shared similar habitat preference in winter (steep south-western slopes at high elevation), our data suggest different habitat preferences between sexes in summer. Knowledge of the space use of threatened species is crucial for their conservation, and this is especially true for apex predators who often provide benefits for an entire ecosystem. Our study provides a preliminary understanding of the spatial ecology of this important species in an area of critical conservation concern.

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Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 96%

Seasonal space use and habitat selection of GPS collared snow leopards (Panthera uncia) in the Mongolian Altai range

Rosenbaum¹,

Poyarkov

Munkhtsog

et al. 2023

PLoS ONE

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“…Data collection: Snow leopards. Twenty-three snow leopards (11 female, 12 male) were captured between 2009 and 2019 with modified Aldrich style snares set at their marking sites and immobilised with a combination of tiletamine-zolazepam and medetomidine 48,49 . Captured animals were fitted with GPS-collars programmed to record the animal's location every fifth hour (GPS Plus and Vertex Lite, Vectronic Aerospace, Gmbh, Berlin, Germany), and also contained two single-axis accelerometers, acquiring instantaneous activity data on lateral (y-axis) and posterior-anterior (x-axis) movements.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The capture teams consisted of highly experienced staff with appropriate training and equipment. We employ a custom-made surveillance system that monitors our traps, ensuring that animals spend as little time as possible in the traps 49 . All capture, handling and monitoring of animals in this study follow rigorous ethical guidelines as detailed in 49 .…”

Section: Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Seasonal variation in daily activity patterns of snow leopards and their prey

Johansson

Mishra

Chapron

et al. 2022

Sci Rep

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The daily and seasonal activity patterns of snow leopards (Panthera uncia) are poorly understood, limiting our ecological understanding and hampering our ability to mitigate threats such as climate change and retaliatory killing in response to livestock predation. We fitted GPS-collars with activity loggers to snow leopards, Siberian ibex (Capra sibirica: their main prey), and domestic goats (Capra hircus: common livestock prey) in Mongolia between 2009 and 2020. Snow leopards were facultatively nocturnal with season-specific crepuscular activity peaks: seasonal activity shifted towards night-sunrise during summer, and day-sunset in winter. Snow leopard activity was in contrast to their prey, which were consistently diurnal. We interpret these results in relation to: (1) darkness as concealment for snow leopards when stalking in an open landscape (nocturnal activity), (2) low-intermediate light preferred for predatory ambush in steep rocky terrain (dawn and dusk activity), and (3) seasonal activity adjustments to facilitate thermoregulation in an extreme environment. These patterns suggest that to minimise human-wildlife conflict, livestock should be corralled at night and dawn in summer, and dusk in winter. It is likely that climate change will intensify seasonal effects on the snow leopard's daily temporal niche for thermoregulation in the future.

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