A STUDY of
camera-trap data from Serengeti National Park in Tanzania found that
leopard population densities in the 3.7-million-acre park are similar to
those in other protected areas but vary
between wet and dry seasons.
The fluctuations
appear to be driven by the abundance of prey and how this affects
interactions with other large carnivores like lions, researchers report.
Despite the long
history of wildlife research in the Serengeti, this is the first
peer-reviewed study of leopard densities in the park, said Max Allen, a
carnivore ecologist with the Illinois Natural History Survey at the
University of Illinois, Urbana Champaign who led the research.
Allen and his team
analyzed data from Snapshot Serengeti, a large collaborative effort that
uses hundreds of camera traps to collect data on large cats and other
wildlife in the Serengeti. The team published the new findings in the
journal Biodiversity and Conservation.
"In the wet season,
when potential prey species like Thomson's gazelle and impala are
available in abundance, leopards appear at higher densities," Allen
said. "In the dry season, leopards seem to work harder to avoid other
large carnivores that compete with them for less abundant food."
The team used
advanced analytical techniques called Bayesian statistics to estimate
leopard densities for each camera-trap site and for the study area
overall. "We found 5.72 and 5.41 leopards per 100-square-kilometers in
the wet and dry seasons, respectively," Allen said.
"These densities
suggest the leopard populations are at moderately healthy levels in the
Serengeti. This reflects the importance of large conservation areas for
large carnivores, as leopard populations are generally declining across
their range."
The results also
highlight the importance of citizen-scientist projects for the
conservation of wild species, Allen said. Snapshot Africa is one of the
most effective citizen science projects in the world, he said. "Large
carnivores at the top of the food chain play important roles in
ecosystem regulation, and disease and population control," Allen said.
"The human-induced
changes to habitat availability and quality are accelerating the decline
of large carnivores, which are already vulnerable because they have
naturally low population densities at birth."
Understanding how
carnivore populations are faring and what factors contribute to their
success is essential to conserving them and the other wildlife in their
ecosystem, Allen said. Capturing data about their habits through
unobtrusive camera traps can lead to better management of the wild areas
on which they depend.
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