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Clouded leopard cheer for Dampa reserve
-Study by Indian and British reaserchers finds highest density of the animal in southeast Asia
Roopak Goswami

A clouded leopard captured through camera-trapping in Dampa. Picture by Ecosystem-India/WildCRU

*This image is copyright of its original author

Guwahati, Oct. 1: Dampa tiger reserve in Mizoram has the highest density of clouded leopards in Southeast Asia, according to a study by researchers from India and the UK.


The study - Populations and Activity Patterns of Clouded Leopards and Marbled Cats in Dampa Tiger Reserve, India - was carried out by Priya Singh, an alumnus of National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bangalore, and independent researcher affiliated to Researchers for Wildlife Conservation (RWC), Bangalore, and David W. Macdonald of Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, University of Oxford. It has been published in the latest issue of Journal of Mammalogy.
The study was supported by Ecosystem India and WildCRU.


It found the density of clouded leopards was 5.14 (standard deviation of 1.80) per 100 square km and 5.03 (standard deviation of 2.07) per 100 square km for marbled cats in Dampa. This is the highest density for clouded leopards in Southeast Asia and the first estimate of marbled cats in Asia.
"Our results indicate a high density of clouded leopards in Dampa compared to other parts of their range in Southeast Asia where the highest density obtained was 3.46 (with a standard deviation of 1.00) in 100 square km," the study said.
Priya said Manas tiger reserve has a clouded leopard density of 4.73 (standard deviation of 1.43) for 100 square km. The area covered in Manas was much larger and the camera trapping was done mainly for tigers and leopards.
The camera-trapping in Dampa was carried out across 80 square km in the northeastern part of the core area. Apart from meeting other logistic requirements, the authors said this was the best protected area of the reserve with minimal human disturbance.
"We had several photo captures which allowed us to estimate their population using statistically robust estimation methods," Priya told The Telegraph .
Ten clouded leopards and 10 marbled cats were identified from the 84 photographs of clouded leopards and 36 marbled cats during the study.
Clouded leopard ( Neofelis nebulosa) and marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata) are felid species found in the tropical forests of South and Southeast Asia. They are elusive, nocturnal and found in low densities.
Over 60 per cent of the global felid diversity (21 species) is found in Asia. At least 11 of these species inhabit the tropical forests of South and Southeast Asia where 40 per cent of green cover has already been converted to other land uses. The study was conducted between December 2014 and March 2015 in Dampa, which is located in the Lushai hills of the Indo-Burma biodiversity hotspot and is an important bird and biodiversity area.
Dampa has a wide variety of mammals. Previous camera-trapping conducted by the forest department to document biodiversity had revealed at least 30 species of mammals. These include four species of felids (clouded leopard, marbled cat, Asiatic golden cat, leopard cat), two species of ursids (sun bear and Asiatic black bear) and two species of canids (golden jackal and dhole).
The clouded leopard is categorised as "vulnerable" and the marbled cat as "near threatened" in the IUCN Red List.
The study says clouded leopards and marbled cats are found in forested areas of northeastern India. They are generally considered rare and encountered infrequently even in camera-trapping surveys. Their distribution stretches over remote areas with difficult terrain and political instability such as Manas tiger reserve in Assam, Intanki National Park in Nagaland, Namdapha tiger reserve in Arunachal Pradesh and Dampa in Mizoram. "While these factors cumulatively make clouded leopards and marbled cats difficult subjects of ecological studies, they also make them highly susceptible to extinction risks triggered by cultural and political reasons," it said.
The study said Dampa tiger is an important area for rare, tropical biodiversity, including four species of poorly known felids. It also analysed daily activity behaviour of clouded leopards, marbled cats, golden cats and leopard cats.
"India is an important country for conservation of rare cats which are threatened throughout their distributional range. While our focus and attention has been on larger cats like tiger and leopard, clouded leopards and marbled cats are equally important for tropical ecosystems and perform important ecological functions like keeping rodent populations in control. They are rare, beautiful and charismatic. Rapidly changing land use patterns like expanding areas for palm oil cultivation could be a threat to such species," Priya said.
The study said the highest density estimates generated for both clouded leopards and marbled cats in Asia need to be considered with caution since they could be indicators of larger ecological processes under way in the region. The landscape around Dampa has undergone largescale land use changes recently. These include proliferation of palm oil plantations since 2007, encouraged by the state government under its New Land Use Policy and horticulture promotion schemes, and expansion of area under shifting cultivation with short fallow cycles. "Such changes in the surrounding landscape, although restricted only to the north and east of the study area, may have resulted in the recent concentration of these carnivores into the relatively undisturbed habitat in the core area of the reserve that forms our study area," it said. Reply