Tigers and Their Prey in Bukit Rimbang Bukit Baling: Abundance Baseline for Effective Wildlife Reserve Management
Abstract: Managing the
critically endangered Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) needs accurate
information on its abundance and availability of prey at the landscape level.
Bukit Rimbang Bukit Baling Wildlife Reserve in central Sumatra represents an
important area for tigers at local, regional and global levels. The area has
been recognized as a long-term priority Tiger Conservation Landscape. Solid
baseline information on tigers and prey is fundamentally needed for the
management. The objective of this study was to produce robust estimate of tiger
density and prey a vailability in the reserve. We used camera traps to
systematically collecting photographic samples of tigers and prey using Spatial
Capture Recapture (SCR) framework. We estimated density for tigers and
calculated trap success rate (TSR; independent pictures/100 trap nights) for
main prey species. Three blocks in the reserve were sampled from 2012 to 2015
accumulating a total of 8,125 effective trap nights. We captured 14 tiger
individuals including three cubs. We documented the highest density of tigers
(individuals/100 km2) in southern sampling block (based on traditional capture
recapture (TCR) : 1.52 ± SE 0.55; based on Maximum Likelihood (ML) SCR:0.51 ±
SE 0.22) and the lowest in northeastern sampling block (TCR: 0.77 ±SE 0.39; ML
SCR: 0.19 ± SE 0.16). The highest TSR of main prey (large ungulates and
primates) was in northeastern block (35.01 ± SD 8.67) and the lowest was in
southern block (12.42 ± SD 2.91). The highest level of disturbance, as
indicated by TSR of people, was in northeastern sampling block (5.45 ± SD 5.64)
and the lowest in southern (1.26 ± SD 2.41). The results suggested that human
disturbance strongly determine the density of tigers in the area, more than
prey availability. To recover tigers, suggested strategies include controlling
human disturbance and poaching to the lowest possible level in addition to
maintaining main prey availability.
Keywords:
Capture-Mark-Recapture; closed population; habitat management; population
viability; tiger recovery
Penulis: Febri Anggriawan
Widodo, Stephanus Hanny, Eko Hery Satriyo Utomo, Zulfahmi -, Kusdianto -, Eka
Septayuda, Tugio, Effendy Panjaitan, Leonardo Subali, Agung Suprianto, Karmila
Parakkasi, Nurchalis Fadhli, Wishnu Sukmantoro, Ika Budianti, Sunarto
Kode Jurnal: jpkehutanandd170137
