Data from: 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 while
exotic carnivore occupancy and encounter rates increased. Feral cats
(Felis species) and domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) had higher occupancy
than half of the native carnivore species across Madagascar’s largest
protected landscape. Bird and small mammal encounter rates were negatively
associated with exotic carnivore occupancy, but positively associated with
the occupancy of four native carnivore species. Spotted fanaloka (Fossa
fossana) occupancy was constrained by the presence of exotic feral cats
and exotic small Indian civet (Viverricula indica). Hunting was intense
across the four study sites where hunting was studied, with the highest
rates for the small Indian civet ( individuals consumed/year), the
ring-tailed vontsira (Galidia elegans) ( consumed/year), and the fosa
(Cryptoprocta ferox) ( consumed/year). Our modeling results suggest
hunters target intact forest where carnivore occupancy, abundance, and
species richness, are highest. These various anthropogenic pressures and
their effects on carnivore populations, especially increases in exotic
carnivores and hunting, have wide-ranging, global implications and demand
effective management plans to target the influx of exotic carnivores and
unsustainable hunting that is affecting carnivore populations across
Madagascar and worldwide.