Leopard Panthera pardus density and survival in an ecosystem with depressed abundance of prey and dominant competitors
MILAN A. VINKS ,S COT T CREEL,ELIAS ROS E N B L A T T,MATTHEW S. B ECKER PAUL SCHUETTE,BEN GOODHEA RT,CAR OLYN S ANGUINETTI KAMBWIRI BANDA,CLIVE CHI FUNTE and CHUMA S IMUKONDA
Abstract The leopard Panthera pardus is in range-wide de- cline, and many populations are highly threatened. Prey de- pletion is amajor cause of global carnivore declines, but the response of leopard survival and density to this threat is un- clear: by reducing the density of a dominant competitor (the lion Panthera leo) prey depletion could create both costs and benefits for subordinate competitors. We used capture– recapture models fitted to data from a 7-year camera-trap study in Kafue National Park, Zambia, to obtain baseline estimates of leopard population density and sex-specific apparent survival rates. Kafue is affected by prey depletion, and densities of large herbivores preferred by lions have declined more than the densities of smaller herbivores preferred by leopards. Lion density is consequently low. Estimates of leopard density were comparable to ecosystems with more intensive protection and favourable prey dens- ities. However, our study site is located in an area with good ecological conditions and high levels of protection relative to other portions of the ecosystem, so extrapolat- ing our estimates across the Park or into adjacent Game Management Areas would not be valid. Our results show that leopard density and survival within north-central Kafue remain good despite prey depletion, perhaps because (1) prey depletion has had weaker effects on preferred
MILAN A. VINKS* (Corresponding author,
orcid.org/0000-0002-9291-8884),
SCOTT CREEL*†,MATTHEW S. BECKER* and BEN GOODHEART* Department of Ecology, Montana State University, Bozeman, USA E-mail
milan.vinks@
gmail.com
ELIAS ROSENBLATT Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources, University of Vermont, Aiken Center, Burlington, USA
PAUL SCHUETTE U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Marine Mammals Management, Anchorage, USA
CAROLYN SANGUINETTI and KAMBWIRI BANDA Zambian Carnivore Programme, Mfuwe, Zambia
CLIVE CHIFUNTE‡ Institut för Vilt, Fisk Och Miljö, Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet, Umea, Sweden
CHUMA SIMUKONDA Zambian Department of National Parks and Wildlife, Lusaka, Zambia
*Also at: Zambian Carnivore Programme, Mfuwe, Zambia †Also at: Institut för Vilt, Fisk Och Miljö, Sveriges Lantbruksuniversitet, Umea, Sweden ‡Also at: Zambian Department of National Parks andWildlife, Lusaka, Zambia
Received 21 October 2020. Accepted 4 February 2021. First published online 25 August 2021.
leopard prey compared to larger prey preferred by lions, and (2) the density of dominant competitors is consequently low. Our results show that the effects of prey depletion can be more complex than uniform decline of all large carnivore species, and warrant further investigation.
Keywords Kafue National Park, leopard, Panthera pardus, population density, prey density, prey depletion, survival, Zambia
Introduction
et al., 2011; Swanepoel et al., 2013; Odden et al., 2014). However, the ability of leopards to occupy landscapes af- fected by humans does not exempt them from threats asso- ciated with increasing anthropogenic pressure (Jacobson et al., 2016), and negative anthropogenic effects on leopard populations in sub-Saharan Africa have been reported (Balme et al., 2010; Henschel et al., 2011; Rosenblatt et al., 2016; Stein et al., 2020; Naude et al., 2020). The strength of such anthropogenic effects is not well known, largely because it is difficult to obtain precise data on popula- tion density and survival (Durant et al., 2007). Like other African carnivores, the leopard is in decline, and many subspecies and regional populations are highly threatened (Ripple et al., 2014; Jacobson et al., 2016). The species’ broad geographical distribution, generalist ecology, and cryptic nature has led to a misconception that this might not be the case (Jacobson et al., 2016; Stein et al., 2020), and much research on leopards has consequently focused on issues other than conservation (Balme et al., 2014). The causes of leopard population decline are habitat
T
loss and fragmentation, conflictwith people, unsustainable trophy hunting, poaching for body parts, indiscriminate killing, and prey depletion (Athreya et al., 2011; Packer et al., 2011;Nijman etal., 2019;Stein et al., 2020). The latter in particular has been identified as a major issue for leo- pards in Central Africa (Henschel et al., 2011), but little work has evaluated leopard population density and sur- vival in other African protected areas affected by prey depletion.
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 in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Oryx, 2022, 56(4), 518–527 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321000223
he leopard Panthera pardus is a generalist predator that is consistently found outside protected areas (Athreya
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