Distribution and potential habitat of the Vulnerable Himalayan wolf Canis lupus chanco in Bhutan TASHI DHENDUP* 1 ,LETR O 1 ,TAN D I N 2 and SONAM WANGDI1


Abstract The rareHimalayan wolf Canis lupus chanco is ca- tegorized as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, and there is limited knowledge of its ecology and distribution. In Bhutan, the Himalayan wolf is one of the least known car- nivores. Our aims in this study were tomap the current dis- tribution of the wolf in Bhutan and to identify potential habitats within the country. We compiled 32 records of wolf presence from camera-trap surveys and, using a max- imum entropy approach, we estimated a potential habitat of 2,431 km2, comprising c. 6.3% of Bhutan. However, wolf presence was localized and non-continuous. We recom- mend a detailed fine-scale habitat analysis in areas of poten- tial habitat and genetic studies to investigate population structure. Knowledge of these matters will provide insights regarding connectivity and facilitate the development of conservation strategies for this threatened wolf.


Keywords Bhutan, camera-trap surveys, Canis lupus chan- co, distribution, Himalayan wolf, MaxEnt, maximum en- tropy


The supplementary material for this article is available at doi.org/10.1017/S0030605324000127


in some locations, resulting in a distribution restricted to wilderness and remote areas (Boitani et al., 2023). A subspe- cies of the grey wolf, Canis lupus chanco, known as the Himalayan or Tibetan wolf, inhabits the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, and possesses unique genetic adaptations to high-altitude habitats (Werhahn et al., 2018; Joshi et al., 2020). Categorized as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, it has been estimated there are ,4,000 mature individuals, with a projected continuous decline (Werhahn et al., 2023). Although the wolves in Bhutan are most likely of the Himalayan subspecies, this has not yet been confirmed. Little is known about the Himalayan wolf. It occurs in the


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upper trans-Himalayan region of India, Nepal, the Tibetan plateau and northern Bhutan. In Nepal, the wolf is highly threatened, with ,50 mature individuals recorded, and it


*Corresponding author, tashidhend@gmail.com 1Nature Conservation Division, Department of Forests and Park Services,


Thimphu, Bhutan 2WWF Bhutan, Kawajangsa, Thimphu, Bhutan


Received 17 July 2023. Revision requested 14 September 2023. Accepted 17 January 2024. First published online 6 May 2024.


he grey wolf Canis lupus is widely distributed across North America, Europe and Asia, yet faces extirpation


is categorized nationally as Critically Endangered (Jnawali et al., 2011). In Bhutan, the Himalayan wolf is rare and has been recorded mainly in the high alpine areas of Wangchuck Centennial and Jigme Dorji National Parks and Jigme Khesar Strict Nature Reserve. These records have been consistently associated with instances of livestock depredation (Wangchuk, 2004). Wecompiled records of the wolf in Bhutan from bycatch


in a snow leopard Panthera uncia survey during 2022–2023, which covered the northern protected areas and territorial forest divisions at elevations of 3,400–5,200 m (NCD, 2023; Plate 1). The survey area was divided into a 2 × 2 km grid, with a camera-trap station installed in each grid cell, at a location with high probability of snow leopard detec- tion. Each camera-trap station consisted of two cameras, facing each other, to capture both flanks of passing animals. From August 2022 to January 2023, camera-trap stations were deployed across 310 locations. Additionally, we added one wolf record from a nationwide tiger Panthera tigris sur- vey conducted during 2021–2022 and one from a survey for Pallas’scat Otocolobus manul in Jigme Dorji National Park in 2022. To identify potential wolf habitats across Bhutan, we


conducted habitat suitability modelling utilizing MaxEnt 3.4.0 (Philips et al., 2006; Supplementary Material 1). Prior to modelling, we checked for spatial autocorrelation amongst the records, retaining only one point per 1 × 1 km grid cell across the study area (Lham et al., 2021). A default MaxEnt model was implemented containing variables that included 19 bioclimatic variables, slope, aspect, elevation and land cover (see Supplementary Material 1 for details). We subsequently excluded variables contributing ,1%to the model (Gong et al., 2023).We then assessed the remaining variables for multicollinearity using the vifcor function, with a correlation threshold of 0.75,inthe package usdm (Naimi et al., 2014)in R 4.3.1 (R Development Core Team, 2023). We obtained 32 wolf presence points: 25 in Wangchuck Centennial National Park, four in Paro Forest Division, two in Jigme Dorji National Park and one in Jigme Khesar Strict Nature Reserve. From the nationwide snow leopard survey, the relative abundance index (calculated as the number of captures divided by the total sampling effort in days multiplied by 100) of wolves was 0.22, and the naïve occupancy (calculated as the number of camera-trap loca- tions at which we detected wolves divided by the total number of camera-trap locations) was 0.1. The number of individuals captured per independent event was 1–4. The altitudinal range of grey wolf presence was 4,281–5,090 m.


This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. Oryx, 2025, 59(1), 119–122 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000127


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