Fig 1.
Study area in Karnataka, southern India, with sub-district boundaries, protected reserves, forest cover, and eight major cities in the State. Inset: location of Karnataka within India.
Table 1.
Descriptions of environmental and anthropogenic covariates used to model probabilities of leopard presence (Ψ) and probabilities of livestock/human attacks by leopards (Ψa) outside protected reserves in Karnataka; a priori predictions of the direction of influence, and data sources.
Fig 2.
Distribution patterns of leopards in Karnataka.
Spatial distribution of leopards outside protected reserves of Karnataka, based on analysis of media reports. The maps show sub-district-level estimates of (a) naive occupancy, (b) detection probabilities, and (c) probabilities of occupancy. Protected reserves have been clipped out from the predicted probability maps.
Table 2.
Estimates of β-coefficient values (respective standard errors in parentheses) for individual covariates associated with probabilities of leopard presence (Ψ) outside protected reserves in Karnataka, for the top 11 models from the candidate set (cumulative AIC weight >0.95).
All models include fixed covariates for detectability [p(city+area)]. Subscripts for β-coefficients: int- intercept; vcov- vegetation cover; irrg- irrigated crop fields; rock- rocky escarpments; dogs- density of dogs; lstk- density of livestock; rain- annual rainfall; area- size of sub-district; city- average distance to eight major cities.
Table 3.
Estimates of β-coefficient values (respective standard errors in parentheses) for individual covariates associated with probabilities of livestock/human attacks by leopards (Ψa) outside protected reserves in Karnataka, for the top 8 models from the candidate set (cumulative AIC weight >0.95).
All models include intercept-only model for presence [Ψp(.)] and fixed covariates for detectability [ppp(city), ppa(city), paa(city)]. Subscripts for β-coefficients: int- intercept; irrg- irrigated crop fields; dogs- density of dogs; lstk- density of livestock; capt- number of captures from each sub-district; rels- number of releases in each sub-district; city- average distance to eight major cities.
Fig 3.
Patterns of livestock/human attacks by leopards in Karnataka.
Hotspots of livestock/human attacks by leopards outside protected reserves of Karnataka, based on analysis of media reports. The maps show sub-district-level estimates of (a) naive occupancy and (b) probabilities of livestock/human attacks. Protected reserves have been clipped out from the predicted probability map.
Fig 4.
Reasons for leopard removal and post-capture fates of leopards.
Percentage of leopard captures segregated based on (a) reasons for physical capture of individuals, and (b) post-capture fate of leopards trapped outside protected reserves of Karnataka. (c) Percentage of capture-release cases of leopards, segregated based on translocation distances (approximate distance between location of capture and location of release). The graphs correspond to data from media reports for 14 months (March 2013 to April 2014).