The conservation of tigers and other wildlife in oil palm plantations

Relative abundance of species across a human-dominated landscape
Relative abundance for the top ten most common large mammal species was
measured using camera-trapping rates from over 7000 trap nights, with results
presented separately for randomly placed cameras (2587 trap nights) and non-random
(tiger-targeted) cameras (4515 trap nights). The number of ‘unknown’ people
photographs (i.e. not plantation or conservation staff) is also included for comparison.
The results (Table 5 and Figure 16) show that wild pig are by far the most common
species on site, closely followed by pig-tailed macaques and bearded pig. Based on
randomly placed cameras only, which should give less bias estimates of abundance,
leopard cats, muntjac, sambar and sun bear were the next most common species, but
placing cameras specifically for tigers showed that tiger, tapir and dhole were also
photographed regularly.
Table 5 - Trapping rates from random and non random placed cameras
Non random cameras Random cameras All cameras
Species Photos Photos/trap night Photos Photos/trap night Photos Photos/trap night
Wild pig 856 0.19 669 0.26 1525 0.22
Person (unknown) 691 0.15 31 0.01 722 0.10
Pig-tailed macaque 512 0.11 114 0.04 626 0.09
Bearded pig 235 0.05 108 0.04 343 0.05
Leopard cat 124 0.03 45 0.02 169 0.02
Muntjac 34 0.01 48 0.02 82 0.01
Tiger 68 0.02 0 0.00 68 0.01
Tapir 49 0.01 0 0.00 49 0.00
Dhole 25 0.01 1 0.00 26 0.00
Sun bear 21 0.00 3 0.00 24 0.00
Sambar 16 0.00 5 0.00 21 0.00
Figure 16 – Camera-trapping rates for top ten mammals and people
Wildlife conservation in oil palm plantations 27