Hunting, exotic carnivores, and habitat loss: anthropogenic effects on a native carnivore community, Madagascar

The wide-ranging, cumulative, negative effects of anthropogenic disturbance, including habitat degradation, exotic species, and hunting, on native wildlife has been well documented across a range of habitats worldwide with carnivores potentially being the most vulnerable due to their more extinction prone characteristics. Investigating the effects of anthropogenic pressures on sympatric carnivores is needed to improve our ability to develop targeted, effective management plans for carnivore conservation worldwide. Utilizing photographic, line-transect, and habitat sampling, as well as landscape analyses and village-based bushmeat hunting surveys, we provide the first investigation of how multiple forms of habitat degradation (fragmentation, exotic carnivores, human encroachment, and hunting) affect carnivore occupancy across Madagascar’s largest protected area: the Masoala-Makira landscape. We found that as degradation increased, native carnivore occupancy and encounter rates decreased ...

人为干扰（涵盖生境退化、外来物种与狩猎活动）对本土野生动物造成的广泛且累积的负面影响，已在全球各类生境中得到充分研究记录；其中食肉目动物因其易灭绝的生物学特性，可能是受影响最脆弱的类群。探究人为压力对同域分布（sympatric）食肉目动物的影响，有助于提升我们制定针对性、高效的全球食肉动物保护管理方案的能力。本研究采用摄影采样、样线法（line-transect）与生境采样手段，结合景观分析与基于村落的丛林肉狩猎（bushmeat hunting）调查，首次针对马达加斯加最大的保护地——马苏阿拉-马基拉景观区，探究了多种生境退化形式（生境破碎化、外来食肉动物、人类侵占与狩猎活动）对食肉动物占据率（occupancy）的影响。研究发现，随着生境退化程度加剧，本土食肉动物的占据率与遇见率（encounter rates）均呈下降趋势……