IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
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| Khorozyan, I.; Ghoddousi, A.; Soofi, M.; Waltert, M. | |
| Big cats kill more livestock when wild prey reaches a minimum threshold | |
| 2015 Biological Conservation (192): 268-275 | |
Livestock predation by big cats, i.e., lion (Panthera leo), tiger (Panthera tigris), leopard (Panthera pardus), jaguar (Panthera onca), snow leopard (Panthera uncia), puma (Puma concolor), and cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus), creates conflictswith humanswhich challenge biodiversity conservation and rural development. Deficiency ofwild prey biomass is often described as a driver of such conflicts, but the question "at which level of prey density and biomass do big cats begin to kill livestock?" still remains unanswered. We applied logistic regression to meta-data compiled fromrecent peer-reviewed scientific publications and showthat cattle predation is highwhen prey biomass is b812.41ñ1.26 kg/km2, whereas sheep and goat predation is high at b544.57 ñ1.19 kg/km2, regardless of sizes of study areas and species, bodymasses, and population densities of big cats. Throughmapping caseswith known prey biomass and case-specific comparison of actual vs. threshold-predicted livestock predation we confirm the reliability of these thresholds in predicting livestock predation by big cats. The map also demonstrates that some protected areas of India, Nepal lowlands, and South Africa contain sufficient prey that makes big cats less likely to kill livestock, but in other sampled areas prey biomass is not high enough and the probabilities of livestock predation are moderate to high. Wesuggest that these thresholds represent important landmarks for predicting human-felid conflicts, identifying conflict hotspots, and setting priorities for targeted conservation actions. It is essential to maintain and restore wild prey to forestall local extinctions of big cats. |
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