Snow Leopard Survival Strategy - Panthera

and organizational requirements for generating synoptic
multi-scale views of the earth’s surface and its biological
content. Using the spatially comprehensive data that
are now available, researchers, land managers, and
land-use planners can, for the first time, quantitatively
place landscape units - from general categories such as
`Forests’ or `Cold-Deciduous Shrubland Formation’ to
more categories such as `Picea glauca-Abies balsamea-
Populus spp. Forest Alliance’ - in their large-area
contexts. The National Gap Analysis Program (GAP) has
developed the technical and organizational capabilities
necessary for the regular production and analysis of
such information. This paper provides a brief overview
of concepts and methods as well as some recent results
from the GAP projects. Clearly, new frameworks
for biogeographic information and organizational
cooperation are needed if we are to have any hope
of documenting the full range of species occurrences
and ecological processes in ways meaningful to their
management. The GAP experience provides one model
for achieving these new frameworks.
Jobin, A., P. Molinari and U. Breitenmoser. 2000. Prey
spectrum, prey preference and consumption rates
of Eurasian lynx in the Swiss Jura Mountains. Acta
Theriologica 45(2):243-252.
We examined 617 kills made by radio-tracked Eurasian
lynx Lynx lynx (Linnaeus, 1758) from March 1988 to
May 1998 to assess prey spectrum, preference, and food
consumption rates in the Swiss Jura Mountains. Roe deer
Capreolus capreolus and chamois Rupicapra rupicapra
were the main prey (69 and 22%, respectively), followed
by red fox Vulpes vulpes, brown hare Lepus europaeus,
domestic cat Felis catus, wild cat Felis sylvestris,
marmot Marmota marmota, pine marten Martes martes,
capercaillie Tetrao urogallus, and badger Meles meles.
Lynx fed on an ungulate prey from 1 to 7 days, depending
on the prey category. The consumption rates of males,
of females alone, and of females with kittens varied
from 3.2 to 4.9 kg per night, with an increasing trend
as the kittens grew older. Including the days when lynx
had no kill (searching time) lynx consumed 2 +/- 0.9
kg per night. The mean searching time was 1.5-2 days
for females, depending on the season and the number
of kittens, and 2.5 days for males. The mean interval
between consecutive kills was 5.9 for males and 5.2
days for females, respectively. At 38% of carcasses the
presence of one or several scavengers (red fox, raven
Corvus corax or both) was detected. Although 69%
of the kills were roe deer and only 22% chamois, we
hypothesise that in the forests of the Jura Mountains
chamois are more vulnerable to lynx predation than roe
deer, as chamois had a slightly higher preference index
(0.59) than roe deer (0.41), based on rough estimates of
the two ungulate populations in the study area.
Johnson, K. G., W. Wang, D. G. Reid and J. C. Hu. 1993.
Food-habits of Asiatic leopards (Panthera pardus
fusea) in Wolong Reserve, Sichuan, China. Journal of
Mammalogy 74(3):646-650.
Analysis of feces showed Asiatic leopards (Panthera
pardus fusea) to consume a varied diet over a 7-year
period. Tufted deer (Elaphodus cephalophus) was
replaced as the most frequent prey by bamboo rats
(Rhizomys sinense). Fifteen species of large and
medium-sized mammals composed the majority of the
diet with pheasants, livestock, grass, and soil being
eaten occasionally. Reasons for dietary shifts were
unclear and may reflect leopards hunting for any readily
captured prey by opportunistic encounter and perhaps by
changes in hunting behavior, prey availability, or prey
vulnerability associated with a bamboo die-off.
Karanth, K. U. and J. D. Nichols. 1998. Estimation of
tiger densities in India using photographic captures
and recaptures. Ecology 79(8):2852-2862.
The tiger (Panthera tigris) is an endangered, large felid
whose demographic status is poorly known across its
distributional range in Asia. Previously applied methods
for estimating tiger abundance, using total counts based
on tracks, have proved unreliable. Lack of reliable data
on tiger densities not only has constrained our ability to
understand the ecological factors shaping communities
of large, solitary felids, but also has undermined the
effective conservation of these animals. In this paper, we
describe the use of a field method proposed by Karanth
(1995), which combines camera-trap photography,
to identify individual tigers, with theoretically wellfounded
capture-recapture models. We developed a
sampling design for camera-trapping and used the
approach to estimate tiger population size and density
in four representative tiger habitats indifferent parts of
India. The field method worked well and provided data
suitable for analysis using closed capture-recapture
models. The results suggest the potential for applying
this methodology to rigorously estimate abundances,
survival rates, and other population parameters for
tigers and other low-density, secretive animal species
in which individuals can be identified based on natural
markings. Estimated probabilities of photo-capturing
tigers present in the study sites ranged from 0.75 to 1.00.
Estimated densities of tigers > 1 yr old ranged from 4.1
+/- 1.31 to 16.8 +/- 2.96 tigers/100 km 2 (mean +/- 1
se). Simultaneously, we used line- transect sampling
to determine that mean densities of principal tiger prey
at these sites ranged from 56.1 to 63.8 ungulates/ km 2 .
Tiger densities appear to be positively associated with
prey densities, except at one site influenced by tiger
poaching. Our results generally support the prediction
that relative abundances of large felid species may be
governed primarily by the abundance and structure of
their prey communities.
82 | SNOW LEOPARD SURVIVAL STRATEGY