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Snow Leopard Population Monitoring
How well are conservation efforts working?
Are snow leopards increasing? Stable?
How many snow leopards are there?
Monitoring snow leopard population status & trends
Our early attempts to
monitor snow leopards
Sign - an indicator of cat numbers
Relationship between sign and cat numbers is unclear
Better Science:
Novel tools to monitor leopards
Camera Traps
Genetics
Nice pictures… wrong animals.
Quickly deplete film and batteries.
2010
2008: Digital camera traps Black and white 2 pictures per second 25,000+ picture capacity Long battery life (6+ months)
Impressive results
High “capture” rate
Many images per encounter
Image quality excellent
Summer 2010:
4-week mark-recapture camera-based population assessment
40 Cameras ~ 1,300 km2 sampling area
Results:
• 18,253 total photos
• 645 snow leopard photos
• 34 snow leopard encounters
• SL photos per encounter: 5 min - 85 max
• Identified 16 individual adults (plus 6 cubs)
• Mark-Recapture analyses = 22 adults (95% CI: 16 – 26)
Using fecal DNA to monitor snow leopards
~
Identify individuals & sex
Estimate cat numbers
Detect changes over time
Challenges: Camera placement can be ‘interesting.’
It’s a huge area to search and not just snow leopards are using it!
Site occupancy as a surrogate variable for monitoring snow leopards
Hypothetical relationship between population and cell occupancy
y = 0.014x0.8733
R² = 0.9762
y = 0.0856x0.5861
R² = 0.8946
0.00
0.10
0.20
0.30
0.40
0.50
0.60
0.70
0.80
0.90
1.00
0 10 20 30 40 50 60
Occupan
cy
Population
5k Grid Occupancy
10k Grid Occupancy
Grid cells for occupancy surveys
Cells Occupied by 1 - 30 leopards During a 7-Day Period
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
70
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Population
Occu
pie
d C
ell
s
10 x 10 km Cells Occupied by 1 - 30 Leopards During a 7-Day Period
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
0 5 10 15 20 25 30
Population
Occu
pie
d 1
0 x
10 k
m C
ell
s
Failure of occupancy methods to detect substantial
declines (-20%, 5 yrs, start pop = 25)
R2 = 0.0234
p = 0.7720.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
R2 = 0.2302
p = 0.6730.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
R2 = 0.1135
p = 0.5140.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
R2 = 0.6762
p =0.0450.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
Failure of occupancy with small populations
(-53%, 5 yrs, start pop = 15)
R2 = 0.0743
p = 0.601
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
R2 = 0.5565
p = 0.0886
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
R2 = 0.6936
p = 0.039
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
R2 = 0.2092
p = 0.362
0.1
0.2
0.3
0.4
0.5
0 1 2 3 4 5
A failed experiment? Perhaps not…..
Diet analyses via DNA barcoding
Fecal DNA amplification with universal primers
High throughout Solexa sequencers
Species identification via DNA barcoding
DIET
GenBank
Reference database
Diet analyses via DNA barcoding
Diet composition at fine scale
1%
2%11%
20%66% Ibex
Domestic goat
Argali
Domestic sheep
Chukar
Better Science:
Novel tools to monitor leopards
Camera Traps
Intensive camera study: China & Kyrgyzstan, 2005
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