Movements and activities of snow leopards in Southwestern Mongolia

By T. McCarthy, T. Fuller, B. Munkhtsog. 2005

143 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Four adult (2M:2F) snow leopards (Uncia uncia) were radio-monitored (VHF; one also via satellite) year-round during 1994– 1997 in the Altai Mountains of southwestern Mongolia where prey densities (i.e., ibex, Capra siberica) were relatively low (� 0.9/km 2 ). Marked animals were more active at night (51%) than during the day (35%). Within the study area, marked leopards showed strong affinity for steep and rugged terrain, high use of areas rich in ungulate prey, and affinity for habitat edges. The satellite-monitored leopard moved more than 12 km on 14% of consecutive days monitored. Home ranges determined by standard telemetry techniques overlapped substantially and were at least 13–141 km 2 in size. However, the satellite-monitored individual apparently ranged over an area of at least 1590 km 2 , and perhaps over as much as 4500 km 2 . Since telemetry attempts from the ground were frequently unsuccessful ð� ¼ 72%Þ, we suspect all marked animals likely had large home ranges. Relatively low prey abundance in the area also suggested that home ranges of >500 km 2 were not unreasonable to expect, though these are >10-fold larger than measured in any other part of snow leopard range. Home ranges of snow leopards may be larger than we suspect in many areas, and thus estimation of snow leopard conservation status must rigorously consider logistical constraints inherent in telemetry studies, and the relative abundance of prey. � 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Subfields: Ecology, Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law, Social Psychology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/151c757e2c3c7fb69e3664622a525df2ac28b2ac

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Citations in the corpus

Comparison of noninvasive genetic and camera-trapping techniques for surveying snow leopards (2011, background): “In most snow leopard field sites telemetry is logistically not feasible (Jackson and Ahlborn 1989; McCarthy et al. 2005).”
Climate refugia of snow leopards in High Asia (2016, methodology): “We set the bounding circles buffer distance as 12 km,which is a common limit of dailymovements for snow leopards (McCarthy et al., 2005).”
Effects of sampling regime on the mean and variance of home range size estimates. (2006, background): “Briner et al. 2005; McCarthy et al. 2005; Preatoni et al. 2005; Spritzer et al. 2005).”
Conservation and climate change: Assessing the vulnerability of snow leopard habitat to treeline shift in the Himalaya (2012, unknown): “We defined snow leopard habitat as: grassland, shrubland, bare areas, and agricultural mosaic in alpine areas (Jackson and Ahlborn, 1989; Jackson, 1996; Oli, 1997; McCarthy and Chapron, 2003; McCarthy et al., 2005; Medias-France, 2008); more rugged relative to the surrounding area (>0.”
Land sharing is essential for snow leopard conservation (2016, background): “The home range overlap in our study differed markedly from that of previous studies on snow leopards where home ranges overlapped almost entirely (Jackson, 1996; Oli, 1997; McCarthy et al., 2005).”
Biotelemetry and biologging in endangered species research and animal conservation: relevance to regional, national, and IUCN Red List threat assessments (2008, background): “This is particularly true for wide-ranging (e.g. whale sharks Rhincodon typus; Gifford et al. 2007) or cryptic species (e.g. flying-foxes Acerodon jubatus; Mildenstein et al. 2005) as well as those that occupy environments that are poorly accessible by humans (e.g. loggerhead turtles Caretta caretta”