Habitat preference indicators for striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) in Nepal
2021
Bhandari, Shivish | Bhusal, Daya Ram | Psaralexi, Maria | Sgardelis, Stefanos
The striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena Linnaeus, 1758) is one of the large carnivores of forest and grassland ecosystems across Africa and Asia and is currently threatened throughout its range. Hyena habitats are shrinking, due to the increase of human-dominated landscapes. The aim of this study was to identify hyena habitat use as indicated by visitation frequency in the human-dominated landscape of lowland Nepal. We followed a camera trap protocol for the estimation of hyena presence and visitation frequency. We used a generalized additive modelling approach with zero-inflated Poisson distribution to evaluate the effects of environmental variables on capture frequency. Our results showed that the two most important and significant predictors of hyena frequency data were canopy volume and maxD (the maximum among the shortest distances to water sources, agriculture land and villages). The highest hyena frequencies were in sites with low canopy volume, i.e. riverbeds and grasslands, whereas lower frequencies were observed in dense forests, i.e. acacia and riverine forests. Additionally, hyena frequency increased with increasing maxD up to 5–6 km and then dropped sharply at larger maxD values. Overall, our study suggests that hyenas prefer open landscapes along rivers and human settlements, where the following combination of conditions is met: adequate cover, access to food and water. The preservation of natural open landscapes close to human settlements and rugged hilly areas seems crucial for the long-term conservation of hyenas.
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