Anthropogenic pressure on large carnivores 263


FIG. 1 The study area in southern Tanintharyi, Myanmar, showing locations of camera traps, villages, main roads and forest cover. (Readers of the printed journal are referred to the online article for a colour version of this figure.)


forests lying close to the main roads and main access routes have been converted to oil palm, rubber cultivation or other forms of agriculture (Shwe et al., 2020). Many wildlife spec- ies are unable to adapt to oil palm and rubber plantations (Aratrakorn et al., 2006; Love et al., 2018), which support low levels of biodiversity (Danielsen et al., 2009). The tiger Panthera tigris, categorized as Endangered on


the IUCN Red List, is decreasing in many locations (Wikramanayake et al., 2011; Goodrich et al., 2015) because of both direct poaching (Nijman & Shepherd, 2015) and de- clines of its large ungulate prey (Ramakrishnan et al., 1999; Karanth et al., 2004; Moo et al., 2018). This is also the case for the Critically Endangered Indochinese leopard Panthera pardus delacouri and Endangered dhole Cuon alpinus, which are top predators in tropical Asian forests. They prey on similar sizes and species of ungulates as the tiger


(Johnsingh, 1992; Karanth & Sunquist, 1995; Kamler et al., 2015; Rostro-García et al., 2016) and are considered indica- tors of ecosystem health (Beschta & Ripple, 2009; Prugh et al., 2009). In Myanmar, tiger populations remain in two landscapes: the Hukaung–Htamanthi complex in the up- per Chindwin basin in the north-west and the Dawna– Tenasserim Ecoregion along the Thailand–Myanmar border (Lynam et al., 2006; MONREC, 2020). Leopards are wide- spread but are concentrated mainly in the northern Tenasserim Forest Complex on the Myanmar–Thailand border (Rostro-García et al., 2016). The distribution of dholes in Myanmar is unclear, with many reports across the country (Kamler et al., 2015; Kao et al., 2020). Despite the importance of the Tanintharyi Region for the conservation of large carnivores, the ongoing pressures of human disturbance and land development mean that little


Oryx, 2023, 57(2), 262–271 © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321001654


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