Determining multi-species site use outside the protected areas of the Maasai Mara, Kenya, using false positive site-occupancy modelling E MIL Y K. MADSEN and FEMKE BRO E K H U I S
Abstract Although protected areas are the basis for many conservation efforts they are rarely of an adequate size for the long-term survival of populations of large, wide-roam- ing mammals. In the Maasai Mara, Kenya, communally owned wildlife conservancies have been developed to ex- pand the area available for wildlife. As these continue to de- velop it is important to ensure that the areas chosen are beneficial to wildlife. Using presence data for cheetahs Acinonyx jubatus,elephants Loxodonta africana, spotted hyaenas Crocuta crocuta,leopards Panthera pardus,lions Panthera leo andwilddogs Lycaon pictus, collected through interviews with 648 people living outside protected areas, we identify key wildlife areas using false positive site-occu- pancymodelling. The probabilities of site usewere first deter- mined per species based on habitat, distance to protected area, human presence and rivers, and these probabilities were then combined to create a map to highlight key wildlife areas. All species, except hyaenas, preferred sites closer to the protected areas but site use varied by species depending on habitat type. All six species avoided human presence. Leopards, elephants, lions and wild dogs preferred sites closer to rivers. The result- ing combined map highlights areas that could potentially benefit from conservation efforts, including the expansion of wildlife areas, and areas where human development, such as a newly tarmacked road, could have an impact on wildlife.
Keywords Carnivores, false positive, interview data, Maasai Mara, mapping, occupancy modelling, protected areas, wildlife distribution
Supplementary material for this article is available at
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605318000297
Introduction P
rotected areas are the basis for many conservation efforts but in many cases are not sufficiently large to
EMILY K. MADSEN* (Corresponding author) Royal Veterinary College, 4 Royal College St, London, NW1 0TU, UK. E-mail:
emadsen6@rvc.ac.uk
FEMKE BROEKHUIS† Kenya Wildlife Trust, Nairobi, Kenya
*Also at: The Zoological Society of London, Institute of Zoology, London, UK †Also at: Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Department of Zoology, Tubney, UK
Received 6 September 2017. Revision requested 23 November 2017. Accepted 8 February 2018. First published online 25 September 2018.
maintain sustainable populations of many species (Stokes et al., 2010; Okello et al., 2016). Approximately 15.4%of the world’s terrestrial area is now formally protected and in Kenya 8% of the land is protected as either a national park or reserve (Western et al., 2009). Nonetheless, 65– 70% of the country’s wildlife resides in unprotected areas where they are under threat (Western et al., 2009; Stolton et al., 2014) and so there is a desire to protect more land for wildlife (Republic of Kenya, 2013). The Maasai Mara in south-west Kenya, for example, is renowned for its annual migration of wildebeest Connochaetes taurinus and high densities of predators (Broekhuis & Gopalaswamy, 2016; Elliot & Gopalaswamy, 2017) but it is under increasing an- thropogenic pressure. Since the 1980s there has been an in- crease in human population growth and fencing of private land outside protected areas (Lamprey & Reid, 2004; Løvschal et al., 2017), which has resulted in wildlife popula- tions decreasing by up to 75% in the 20th century (Ogutu et al., 2011). The Maasai Mara National Reserve (hereafter the Reserve) covers 1,503 km2 and in the last 25 years surrounding areas have been put aside for wildlife to address these declines (Jandreau&Berkes, 2016). These Community Wildlife Conservancies do not have the same status as the Reserve but are nonetheless recognized as being beneficial for wildlife (Stolton et al., 2014). In the conservancies land- owners limit their use of resources and receive an income from tourist operators who pay for exclusive access (Jandreau & Berkes, 2016). The development of conservan- cies has added c. 1,000 km2 of designated wildlife area to the Reserve, with a plan to increase this further (MMWCA, 2015). It is important to ensure that the areas chosen will benefit wildlife conservation, but land protection schemes can be costly and therefore planning needs to be based upon reliable information, from evidence-based research, to ensure cost-effectiveness (Zeller et al., 2011). Land protection schemes are often based on species’ oc-
currence because presence/absence data are easier and cheaper to collect than demographic data such as densities or whole population counts (Gu & Swihart, 2004). Information on wildlife presence can be collected with the help of local people, as they often have good knowledge of their local ecosystem and can provide insights into the dis- tribution of wildlife (Turvey et al., 2015). Interview surveys can be a useful method of collecting this information be- cause of cost-effectiveness and relatively simple logistics (Turvey et al., 2015; Petracca et al., 2018). However, the use
Oryx, 2020, 54(3), 395–404 © 2018 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318000297
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