Does the interface with plantation forests provide suitable habitat for axis deer (Axis axis) to avoid systematic hunting pressure in a protected area of north-eastern Argentina?

AbstractProtected areas help to decrease human impacts on threatened mammals but do not always include species’ core habitats. Here we focus on the Vulnerable taruka Hippocamelus antisensis near the Atacama Desert, Chile, a population that is mainly threatened by interactions with local human communities. We develop a species distribution model for taruka and assess the contribution of protected areas to safeguarding its preferred habitat. From sightings (collected during 2004–2015), absence records (collected in 2014), and environmental variables, we determined that taruka habitat is scarce, highly fragmented and limited to humid areas. Only 7.7–11.2% of the taruka's core habitat is under protection. We recommend the establishment of a protected area in the south of Arica-Parinacota district, an area without settlements that lies within the taruka's core habitat, along with educational programmes, fencing of crops, and inclusion of communities in decision-making in areas where farmer–taruka interactions are negative.

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Spacing behaviour and habitat use of axis deer (Axis axis) in lowland Nepal

Canadian Journal of Zoology ◽

10.1139/z94-234 ◽

1994 ◽

Vol 72 (10) ◽

pp. 1735-1744 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

Stein R. Moe ◽

Per Wegge

Keyword(s):

Home Range ◽

Major Effect ◽

Home Range Size ◽

Dry Season ◽

Range Size ◽

Home Ranges ◽

Axis Axis ◽

Hot Dry Season ◽

Sal Forest ◽

Axis Deer

A total of 17 axis deer (Axis axis) (12 females, 5 males) were radio-instrumented in Bardia National Park in lowland Nepal, and 1921 locations of females and 605 locations of males were obtained during the 2-year study period. Both the annual home ranges (135 ± 33 and 204 ± 38 (SD) ha for females and males, respectively) and the seasonal home ranges were quite small compared with those reported in another study in Nepal. We present evidence that this difference is due to a more fine-grained habitat mosaic in Bardia. Males used larger areas than females in the monsoon and the hot part of the dry season. The deer were sedentary, with a mean seasonal home range overlap between 49 and 86%, and seasonal occupancy centres were all located less than 1300 m apart. Mean seasonal home range size (68 and 110 ha for females and males, respectively) was smallest in the cool part of the dry season. The rutting period did not seem to have any major effect on the ranging behaviour, as neither males nor females increased home range size from the pre-rut to the rutting period. The deer used riverine forest preferentially during the cool-dry and hot-dry seasons, whereas sal forest was the preferred habitat during the monsoon and the cool-dry season. Grasslands were preferentially utilized by females at night during the hot-dry season, presumably because of improved forage quality following cutting and burning. Males were more associated with riverine and sal forest than were females, while females used grassland areas more than males did.

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Use of bioclimatic analysis to direct survey effort for the long-footed potoroo (Potorous longipes), a rare forest-dwelling rat-kangaroo

Wildlife Research ◽

10.1071/wr01035 ◽

2002 ◽

Vol 29 (2) ◽

pp. 193 ◽

Cited By ~ 10

Author(s):

A. W. Claridge

Keyword(s):

Environmental Variables ◽

New Records ◽

New South ◽

New South Wales ◽

Geographic Range ◽

Suitable Habitat ◽

The Past ◽

South Wales ◽

North Eastern ◽

Survey Effort

The long-footed potoroo (Potorous longipes) is one of the rarest and most elusive forest-dwelling mammals in Australia. Survey effort for the species over the past decade or so in south-eastern New South Wales has been driven, primarily, by predictions derived from climatic analyses using BIOCLIM. These predictions were based on known locality records of the long-footed potoroo from adjacent East Gippsland, Victoria. While they have proven useful in confirming the occurrence of the species in New South Wales, recent fortuitous records of the species from north-eastern Victoria fall well outside of the range predicted earlier by BIOCLIM. Using these new records a revised predicted range is calculated, enlarging considerably the potential geographic extent of climatically suitable habitat for the species. The results presented here highlight the limitations of BIOCLIM when given locality records of a species from only a portion of its true geographic range. I argue that less emphasis might be based on this approach to direct survey effort for the species in the future. Instead, a range of other environmental variables might be used in combination with BIOCLIM-derived outputs when selecting survey sites. In this way a more representative picture of the distribution of the species may be obtained.

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