Assessing the efficacy of camera trapping as a tool for increasing detection rates of wildlife crime in tropical protected areas

Abstract Protected areas are critical to biodiversity conservation. Yet many protected areas around the world are very small, and population persistence can be compromised in small habitat patches, particularly for large species. But we do not know how small is too small for long-term population viability, or the degree to which habitat area effects vary with mammal body size, for most tropical species. Here, diversity and species occurrence were assessed in a small national park that has long been isolated from other forest patches. The two largest Bornean carnivores, the Sunda clouded leopard (Neofelis diardi) and sun bear (Helarctos malayanus), may be locally extinct, but 12 smaller carnivores appear to be persisting. The banded civet (Hemigalus derbyanus), the Malay civet (Viverra tangalunga) and the leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) had relatively high occurrence rates and were found in all habitat types, though were more common in hill (banded civet) or lowland (common palm civet) forest (LF). Occurrence probabilities for all of these species and the common palm civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus) were lower in areas more accessible to humans. Detection rates and estimated diversity suggest that this park has a small carnivore assemblage equivalent to those of much larger areas. These are the first results demonstrating size-specific vulnerability to area effects in Southeast Asian carnivores.

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Rangers can't be with every elephant: assessing rangers' perceptions of a community, problem-solving policing model for protected areas

Oryx ◽

10.1017/s0030605318001461 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 1-10

Author(s):

William D. Moreto ◽

Richard Charlton

Keyword(s):

Law Enforcement ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Science Research ◽

Conservation Policy ◽

Front Line ◽

Policy And Practice ◽

Wildlife Crime ◽

Illegal Activities ◽

Study Participants

AbstractRecent studies have highlighted that illegal activities occurring within protected areas, including the poaching of fauna and flora, cannot be addressed with increased law enforcement alone. Moreover, research on the increasingly militarized nature of front-line conservation efforts has pointed to potentially detrimental aspects of such approaches. This has led to a shift in focus to identifying ways to further engage local communities in the prevention and reduction of wildlife crimes. However, few studies have examined the potential for changing the responsibilities of front-line conservation personnel or their views on such changes. Such insight is vital in forecasting the successful adoption of, or possible resistance towards, a more community-oriented policy. We examined rangers’ perceptions in Uganda to assess their attitudes towards traditional enforcement strategies and alternative, non-enforcement approaches for reducing illegal activities in protected areas. Our findings suggest that although respondents believed that traditional enforcement strategies (e.g. foot patrols) are important and effective in reducing wildlife crime, these strategies on their own were insufficient to address illegal activities. Study participants emphasized the importance of expanding the role of front-line rangers, in line with approaches suggested in the policing literature. We discuss the implications of our findings for transdisciplinary conservation science research and front-line conservation policy and practice.

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Editorial: Wildlife crime poses unique challenges to protected areas

PARKS ◽

10.2305/iucn.ch.2013.parks-19-1.nd.en ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 19 (1) ◽

pp. 7-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Nigel Dudley ◽

Sue Stolton ◽

Wendy Elliott

Keyword(s):

Protected Areas ◽

Wildlife Crime

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Deterrence, Legitimacy, and Wildlife Crime in Protected Areas

Conservation Criminology ◽

10.1002/9781119376866.ch3 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 45-58 ◽

Cited By ~ 6

Author(s):

William D. Moreto ◽

Jacinta M. Gau

Keyword(s):

Protected Areas ◽

Wildlife Crime

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An open-access platform for camera-trapping data

Biodiversity Informatics ◽

10.17161/bi.v13i0.6975 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 13 ◽

Author(s):

Mario César Lavariega

Keyword(s):

Protected Areas ◽

System Development ◽

Camera Trapping ◽

Community Based ◽

Southern Mexico ◽

Computer Scientists ◽

Monitoring Of Biodiversity ◽

Access To Data ◽

Agile Software ◽

Data Design

In southern Mexico, local communities have been playing important roles in the design and collection of wildlife data through camera-trapping in community-based monitoring of biodiversity projects. However, the methods used to store the data have limited their use in matters of decision-making and research. Thus, we present the Platform for Community-based Monitoring of Biodiversity (PCMB), a repository, which allows storage, visualization, and downloading of photographs captured by community-based monitoring of biodiversity projects in protected areas of southern Mexico. The platform was developed using agile software development with extensive interaction between computer scientists and biologists. System development included gathering data, design, built, database and attributes creation, and quality control. The PCMB currently contains 28,180 images of 6478 animals (69.4% mammals and 30.3% birds). Of the 32 species of mammals recorded in 18 PA since 2012, approximately a quarter of all photographs were of white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus). Platforms permitting access to camera-trapping data are a valuable step in opening access to data of biodiversity; the PCMB is a practical new tool for wildlife management and research with data generated through local participation. Thus, this work encourages research on the data generated through the community-based monitoring of biodiversity projects in protected areas, to provide an important information infrastructure for effective management and conservation of wildlife.

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Conservation Criminology: Modelling Offender Target Selection for Illegal Fishing in Marine Protected Areas

The British Journal of Criminology ◽

10.1093/bjc/azz020 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 59 (6) ◽

pp. 1455-1477 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Damian P Weekers ◽

Renee Zahnow ◽

Lorraine Mazerolle

Keyword(s):

Protected Areas ◽

Marine Protected Areas ◽

Target Selection ◽

Environmental Criminology ◽

Wildlife Crime ◽

The Past ◽

Marine Park ◽

Regional Population ◽

Selection For ◽

Insight Into

AbstractThe emergence of conservation criminology over the past decade provides a unique insight into patterns of wildlife crime. Wildlife crime has a dramatic impact on many vulnerable species and represents a significant challenge to the management of protected areas around the world. This paper contributes to the field of conservation criminology by examining the travel patterns of fishing poachers in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in Australia. The results demonstrate that distance is a key feature of offender target selection, reflecting the established environmental criminology concept of distance decay. The analysis also reveals a significant relationship between individual no-take zones and regional population areas. The applicability of a nodal-oriented approach to wildlife crime prevention is discussed.

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Opportunity for Thailand's forgotten tigers: assessment of the Indochinese tiger Panthera tigris corbetti and its prey with camera-trap surveys

Oryx ◽

10.1017/s0030605319000589 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-8 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Eric Ash ◽

Żaneta Kaszta ◽

Adisorn Noochdumrong ◽

Tim Redford ◽

Prawatsart Chanteap ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Protected Areas ◽

Prey Species ◽

Critical Role ◽

Critical Time ◽

Camera Trap ◽

Panthera Tigris ◽

Population Declines ◽

Detection Rates ◽

Breeding Populations ◽

Tiger Conservation

Abstract Dramatic population declines threaten the Endangered Indochinese tiger Panthera tigris corbetti with extinction. Thailand now plays a critical role in its conservation, as there are few known breeding populations in other range countries. Thailand's Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex is recognized as an important tiger recovery site, but it remains poorly studied. Here, we present results from the first camera-trap study focused on tigers and implemented across all protected areas in this landscape. Our goal was to assess tiger and prey populations across the five protected areas of this forest complex, reviewing discernible patterns in rates of detection. We conducted camera-trap surveys opportunistically during 2008–2017. We recorded 1,726 detections of tigers in 79,909 camera-trap nights. Among these were at least 16 adults and six cubs/juveniles from four breeding females. Detection rates of both tigers and potential prey species varied considerably between protected areas over the study period. Our findings suggest heterogeneity in tiger distribution across this relatively continuous landscape, potentially influenced by distribution of key prey species. This study indicates that the Dong Phayayen-Khao Yai Forest Complex is one of the few remaining breeding locations of the Indochinese tiger. Despite limitations posed by our study design, our findings have catalysed increased research and conservation interest in this globally important population at a critical time for tiger conservation in South-east Asia.

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Illegal fishing and compliance management in marine protected areas: a situational approach

Crime Science ◽

10.1186/s40163-021-00145-w ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Damian Weekers ◽

Gohar Petrossian ◽

Lauric Thiault

Keyword(s):

Law Enforcement ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Marine Protected Areas ◽

Temporal Distribution ◽

Boosted Regression Trees ◽

Environmental Criminology ◽

Wildlife Crime ◽

Management Tools ◽

Marine Park ◽

Spatio Temporal

AbstractProtected Areas (PAs) are spatially representative management tools that impose various levels of protection for conservation purposes. As spatially regulated places, ensuring compliance with the rules represents a key element of effective management and positive conservation outcomes. Wildlife crime, and in particular poaching, is a serious global problem that undermines the success of PAs. This study applies a socio-ecological approach to understanding the opportunity structure of illegal recreational fishing (poaching) in no-take zones in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. We use Boosted Regression Trees to predict the spatio-temporal distribution of poaching risk within no-take Marine National Park zones. The results show that five risk factors account for nearly three quarters (73.6%) of the relative importance for poaching in no-take zones and that temporally varying conditions influence risk across space. We discuss these findings through the theoretical lens of Environmental Criminology and suggest that law enforcement strategies focus on reducing the negative outcomes associated with poaching by limiting the opportunity of would-be offenders to undertake illegal activity.

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Population size, density, and ranging behaviour in a key leopard population in the Western Cape, South Africa

10.1101/2021.07.23.453562 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Lana Müller ◽

Willem Daniel Briers-Louw ◽

Barbara Seele ◽

Christiaan Lochner ◽

Raj Amin

Keyword(s):

South Africa ◽

Protected Areas ◽

Population Size ◽

Camera Trapping ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

Western Cape ◽

Buffer Zones ◽

The Core ◽

Core Study ◽

Anthropogenic Threats

Globally, leopards are the most widespread large felid. However, mounting anthropogenic threats are rapidly reducing viable leopard populations and their range. Despite the clear pressures facing this species, there is a dearth of robust and reliable population and density estimates for leopards across their range, which is particularly important in landscapes that consist of protected and non-protected areas. We conducted a camera trapping survey between 2017 and 2018 in the Western Cape, South Africa to estimate the occupancy, density, and population size of a leopard population. Leopards were recorded at 95% of camera trapping sites, which resulted in a high occupancy that showed no significant variation between seasons, habitat types, or along an altitudinal gradient. Our results indicated a low leopard density in the study area, with an estimated 1.53 leopards/100 km 2 in summer and 1.62 leopards/100 km 2 in winter. Mean leopard population size was therefore estimated at 107 and 113 individuals in the winter and summer respectively. Leopard activity centres for female ranges were centred in the core study area and could be predicted with good certainty, while males appeared to move out of the study area during winter which resulted in a higher uncertainty in locations of activity centres. Interestingly, livestock depredation events in the surrounding farmlands were significantly higher in winter, which coincides with male leopards moving outside the core protected area into the surrounding farmlands. To reduce livestock losses and retaliatory leopard killings, we suggest that human-carnivore conflict mitigation measures be intensely monitored during the winter months in the study area. We also suggest that future leopard conservation efforts should focus on privately-owned land as these non-protected areas contain the majority of the remaining suitable leopard habitat and may provide important dispersal corridors and buffer zones on which the long-term sustainability of leopard populations depends.

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