CatSG

Cat News 79


The new Cat News

Fig. 1. Arabian leopard cub, seen at RCU Conservation Breeding Centre in Taif, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (Photo D. Chancellor).

This is the first issue of the new Cat News. Not much has changed with regard to the appearance and the layout, but there are two major changes, indeed improvements, as we hope.

First, we will now have three issues per year, with a spring, summer and late fall publication. The number of manuscripts submitted has consistently increased over the past years, and we have been more and more fighting a backlog of printing the accepted contributions. Cat News is meant to publish short articles on new findings relevant to cat conservation, and especially colleagues less experienced to publish scientific articles in English are invited to submit papers. Nevertheless, all original contributions are peer reviewed. This implies, however, that some of the manuscripts need to go back and forth several times. To better support the preparation of manuscripts, we have therefore also updated the Guidelines to Authors for Cat News.

Second, Cat News comes with a number of new rubrics, also meant to reinforce the news character of the journal:

  • News from the Red List of Threatened Species will highlight topical uploads and changes or new assessments, including the new Green Status of Species assessments of cats.
  • News from the working groups presents short summaries of the activities of the Species Working Groups affiliated with the Cat Specialist Group (see also Editorial to Cat News 78, autumn 2023).
  • Ex situ news is covering conservation breeding programmes relevant to in situ conservation of cats. Over the past years, the Cat SpecialistGroup has strengthened its ties with the zoo world – e.g. through cooperation with the EAZA Felid TAG – to help aligning breeding programmes such as the European Endangered Species Programmes EEP better with the conservation needs of the free-living cats.
  • Through the lens will celebrate the beauty of wild cats, but also provide news from wildlife photography, including the use of automatic cameras. “Camera trapping” has, over the past years, become the most important tool to study elusive cats, and deserves more attention also from our side. We are grateful to have Malini Pittet as a competent editor of this section.
  • Last but not least, Cats in the news features media releases on wild cats. This used to be an important part of Cat News in the times of Peter Jackson, and we want to take this up again. Roland Bürki, who handles this rubric, is happy to get hints to news from all parts of the globe.

Submitted articles, both Original Contributions and Short Communications, will not change – with the exception that we will insist more to observe the Guidelines when preparing the manuscript and hope to accelerate the process and publication of the papers.

It is no coincidence that the frontispiece of this first issue of the refreshed Cat News
shows an Arabian leopard and that the first articles of the rubrics News from the Red List of Threatened Species and Ex situ news feature the updated assessment and, respectively, the conservation breeding programme of Panthera pardus nimr. On the one hand, this Critically Endangered leopard subspecies (Fig. 1) deserves all of our attention, and on the other hand, we are most grateful to have the Royal Commission for AlUla as a new sponsor of Cat News. To produce, print and mail a third issue of Cat News per year would not be possible without this additional funding provided by the RCU!

We also hope that the new form of Cat News will be appealing to more readers. So, we invite all member of the Cat Specialist Group and all Friends of the Cat Group to advertise the new Cat News and to help us gaining new subscribers.

Urs Breitenmoser

Collaborative conservation efforts for Geoffroy's cat and sympatric small wild cats by F. P. Tirelli, P. E. Horn, M. Favarini, F. Peters and M. Lucherini

Geoffroy's cat Leopardus geoffroyi can be used as an umbrella species among small wild cats, as its wide distribution overlaps with seven other small wild cat species. The Geoffroy's Cat Working Group GCWG was established to ensure the survival of Geoffroy's cats and other small wild cat populations, as well as their habitats in South America. Our mission involves raising awareness and implementing mitigation strategies to protect these species and promote coexistence with humans. Until now, our efforts focused on developing educational materials, implementing road signs and reducing conflicts in rural communities.

First record of a tailless puma within Cloudbridge Nature Reserve, Costa Rica by M. Peterson and L. Ilott-Baudon

Throughout Costa Rican jungles, the puma Puma concolor is widely dispersed. At Cloudbridge Nature Reserve, located in a cloud forest of Pérez Zeledón, Costa Rica, pumas are frequently seen on the camera traps within the property. Until 2023, there were no records of a tailless puma in the database. Now, there have been two separate events captured on the cameras within the reserve. This is an acutely unusual event with limited literature about how this is caused. Globally, it is rare to have documentation of any tailless wild felid. Such little information requires further studies to understand the impact this may have on the individual and how this came to be. Cloudbridge will continue to monitor these cameras with anticipation of seeing the tailless puma again.

Jaguar predation on lemon sharks in Costa Rica by E. Carillo and T. K. Fuller

On two separate occasions, individual jaguars Panthera onca were observed catching (and subsequently consuming) lemon sharks Negaprion brevirostris in shallow surf water on Sirena Beach, Corcovado National Park, Costa Rica. The continued discovery of such previously unnoted species interactions can generate new and more widespread investigation of transboundary food web interactions in the tropics, leading to unusual and insightful ecological discovery.

Arabian leopard in Yemen – an update by A. A. H. Aboalfotooh, O. Baeshen and R. Saip

The Arabian leopard Panthera pardus nimr is assessed as Critically Endangered in the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Only limited and disjointed information is available from Yemen. However, in the last few years, several reports turned up on social media. They were mostly cases of illegal killing, but often from areas where scholars believed the leopard to be extinct, especially from the Al Dhabiyaniyah region. There was even one report of reproduction. Whilst active in situ projects remain highly unlikely due to the armed conflict, citizen science reports and social media should continually be surveyed to gather all possible information on these largely unknown populations.

Supporting Online Material

SOM Figures F1–F11

Observations on the predatory behaviour of caracal in the Dhofar Mountains, Oman by H. Al Hikmani, T. Al Shahari, K. M. Ali Al Hikmani, S. Zabanoot, A. Akaak and K. M. Daan Al Hikmani

The caracal Caracal caracal schmitzi is a widely distributed felid species in the Arabian Peninsula; however little is known about its predatory behaviour. This paper presents new observations from the Dhofar Mountains of Oman of caracals killing several mammal species including rodents, rock hyrax Procavia capensis and mongoose. These observations further our understanding of the predatory habits of this little-studied felid species in the Arabian Peninsula.

The first photographic record of a Borneo bay cat pair of both colouration forms by J. Sunderland-Groves, D. A. Rahman, D. Kurniawan, E. Prasetyo, J. Sihite, C. Sun and C. Burton

The Endangered Borneo bay cat Catopuma badia (hereafter bay cat) is one of the
rarest and least known of all the small cats; however, recent studies using camera traps are increasingly contributing to our knowledge of bay cat distribution. During a three-year camera trap study in the Bukit Batikap Protection  Forest (Batikap) located in Central Kalimantan, Indonesia, images of this highly elusive species were captured on five separate occasions, the second of which captured images of a bay cat pair that appeared to consist of both known colouration phases, the reddish-bay form and the light or dark grey, of which the latter is thought to be rarer. To our knowledge, this is the first photographic record of a bay cat pair of both colouration morphs in the wild and the first photographic record of bay cat in Batikap.

Supporting Online Material

SOM Table T1 and Figure F1

Discovery of rusty-spotted cat from Dehradun Forest Division, Uttarakhand, India by D. Pawar, A. Sarathe, S. Umariya, N. M. Tripathi, A. K. Gupta, A. Patra, A. K. Singh and I. P. Bopanna

The rusty-spotted cat Prionailurus rubiginosus is the smallest member of the Felidae family and is historically only found in the Indian subcontinent. While evidence of its distribution in Uttarakhand is limited, a recent observation was made in the northwest region of Dehradun Valley during an ecological census for large mammals. A camera trap deployed in Arcadia Beat of Asharodi Range in Dehradun Forest Division, at an abandoned tea plantation captured an image of the rusty-spotted cat. This is the first photographic evidence of the cat's presence in the Dehradun Forest Division.

Through the lens by M. Pittet

 

 

First confirmed tiger dispersal record in Bornadi Wildlife Sanctuary, Bhutan and India by S. K. R. Das, J. Deka, D. K. R. Dutta, S. K. Borthakur, U. Kalita, T. Sharma, P. Chanchani, A. Sarmah, J. Ahmed and D. Das

Bornadi Wildlife Sanctuary is the critical tiger habitat of Manas Tiger Reserve, and for the first time, a tiger Panthera tigris was photo-captured in the sanctuary. Previously in 2018, the same individual was recorded on a camera trap in Manas National Park, more than 50 km to the west. This dispersal event is of significance for three reasons: first, it establishes functional connectivity in the Manas and Bornadi; second, it highlights the significance of areas like the Bornadi wildlife sanctuary for tiger conservation and emphasises the need to strengthen protection and management in such ‘satellite’ habitats. Lastly, it testifies to the recovery of tigers in Manas National Park, which may serve as a source site for surrounding areas. The finding also emphasises the need for joint collaborative monitoring and conservation practices to secure the transboundary habitats that are crucial for the recovery and persistence of tigers within the larger Manas complex.

Tiger, snow leopard, and the common leopard co-occur in the forests of Bhutan by T. Dhendup, Letro, Tandin, S. Sunar, K. Rigzin, D. Duba, U. Wangchuk and S. Wangdi

Tigers Panthera tigris, snow leopards P. uncia and common leopards P. pardus are three of the top predators in Asia. Although habitat overlaps between the three species have been previously reported, we provide the first photographic evidence of the three big cat species of the Himalayas in the same area in Bhutan. Camera traps at one of the stations set up as part of the nationwide snow leopard survey in 2022 photographed the three wild cats in Thimphu Forest Division in the western part of the country. We recommend further monitoring to understand the nature of their coexistence and their impacts on the local ecosystem.

Evidence of habitat overlap between tigers and snow leopard in WCNP, Bhutan by K. Wangdi, T. Dhendup, Penjor, Y. Dorji and N. Tash

Bhutan is one of the few countries in which both tigers and snow leopards are found. Both these animals are totally protected in the country. Previously, habitat overlap between tigers and snow leopards in Bhutan was claimed based on evidence such as pugmarks, livestock kills and camera trap images. Until recently, there were no photo­graphic evidence on the habitat overlap between these two species. The first photo­graphic evidences on their co-occurrence was reported from Jigme Dorji National Park JDNP of Bhutan, based on camera trap data of the nationwide tiger survey 2021. In 2022, Wangchuck Centennial National Park WCNP carried out the camera trap survey for the snow leopard as a part of nationwide survey. For that, eighty-seven pairs of camera traps were deployed across 87 stations (2 km x 2 km grid) between altitude range of 3,714 to 5,287 metres in the park. A total of 18 different identifiable mammals were photo-captured in the camera traps. The snow leopards were photo-captured in 31 different camera stations. Remarkably, in a pair of camera traps both the tiger and the snow leopard were photo-captured at the same point. In this report, we present evidence to claim the co-occurrence of tigers and snow leopards in WCNP.

Felid diversity in a montane forest of eastern Bhutan by L. Norbu, K. Leki, S. Tobgay, S. Tobgay, T. Dorji, U. Dechen, D. Tshering, T. Dorji, P. Dorji, U. Lhendup, U. Phutsho, L. Dorji and B. K. Koirala

We report the presence of six wild cat species in Trashigang Forest Division in eastern Bhutan from a camera trap survey conducted in 2015 and 2017–2021. The species reported are: common leopard Panthera pardus, clouded leopard Neofelis nebulosa, Asiatic golden cat Catopuma temminckii, marbled cat Pardofelis marmorata, leopard cat Prionailurus bengalensis and jungle cat Felis chaus. Tiger P. tigris was not recorded. The species has however previously been reported in the region. Our findings suggest that landscapes outside protected areas are of equal potential for the long-term conservation of wild felids in Bhutan. Therefore, we recommend further camera trapping exercises in the division with adequate camera trap density and prolonged trapping effort. We also recommend sustainable forest management practices outside protected areas in the country.

News from the Red List of Threatened Species: Panthera leo remains globally listed as Vulnerable by S. Nicholson, H. Bauer, P. Strampelli, E. Sogbohossou, D. Ikanda, P. F. Tumenta, M. Venktraman, G. Chapron and A. Loveridge


News from the Red List of Threatened Species: Arabian leopard remains Critically Endangered by H. Al Hikmani and A. Spalton


Ex situ news: Beyond the wild: the role of ex situ conservation in the survival of Arabian leopards by A. Mehmood, J. Budd, A. M. Alenzy and J. D. Ferreira

Supporting Online Material

SOM Figure F1

News from the working groups: Persian leopard conservation is boosted by a newly established working group by I. Khorozyan and M. Farhadinia


Cats in the news

Supporting Online Material

SOM