![]() ![]() A management strategy involving seasonal closure of parks may serve to alleviate pressure on leopards and other carnivores. The consequences of these changes in behaviour may include improved health, reproduction and survival. ![]() ![]() In the absence of tourist activity, leopards tended to move more frequently, leopard detection rates increased by 70% and activity shifted towards being more diurnal. Leopard density was unchanged between the two periods, however the movement and activity patterns were clearly different. Using camera-traps, we identified 6 individual leopards and used spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR) methods, incorporating humans and prey as covariates, to test for factors affecting the detection probability of leopards before and after the park closure. We assessed the abundance of leopards and their prey base, and their response to changes in levels of human activity after an unexpected flooding event that resulted in the park being closed to visitors for >6 months. Thailand's largest protected area, Kaeng Krachan National Park (2915 km 2) receives >100,000 visitors annually while maintaining an intact assemblage of prey species for large carnivores, making it a potentially important site for population recovery of leopards (Panthera pardus), tigers (Panthera tigris) and dholes (Cuon alpinus). However, the creation of hard edges around reserve boundaries where conflicts with humans arise and disturbance from human activities inside the reserves may affect carnivore behaviour and ecology. Across Asia protected areas serve as refuges for carnivores inside human-dominated landscapes. ![]()
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