Records of Ferret Badgers Melogale from the States of Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, India
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Records of ferret badgers Melogale from the states of Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh, India Kashmira KAKATI1, Shikha SRIKANT2, Hambert G. MOMIN3, Florian MAGNE4, Pakseng SANGMA4, Sanjay SONDHI5, Rohit NANIWADEKAR6, Jimmy BORAH7 and David SMITH7 Abstract Ferret badger Melogale shifting cultivation areas is close recorded to the for park the are first all time in the from South the Garo Garo Hills; Hills and of Meghalaya, one is from India. the village Records of Uppercame throughRongkhon camera- in the trapping, field sightings and a hunted animal. Two records from Balpakram National ParkM. andpersonata two from in the community Garo Hills. forest Another and record is from a village in Chayang Tajo Circle of East Kameng district, Arunachal Pradesh. West Garo Hills. The hunted animal confirms Burmese or Large-toothed Ferret Badger Keywords: camera-trap, East Kameng district, Garo Hills, human habitation, jhum, limestone, Melogale personata, shifting cultivation Introduction recently from the states of Nagaland and Mizoram (Ved & Za- Two species of ferret badger Melogale have a combined, exten- skull and teeth were not examined. Camera-trap records exist sively overlapping, range on the Asian mainland from Bang- onlythang from in press). two Indian Their sites species so farcould – four not from be identified Namdapha because Tiger ladesh (and possibly Nepal) in the west, across Bhutan and Reserve (TR) in Arunachal Pradesh (Datta et al. 2008) and one North-east India to east China and South-east Asia (Pocock from Dampa TR in Mizoram (Ved & Zathang, in press). 1941, Corbet & Hill 1992, Islam et al. 2008, Thapa 2014). These Melogale records from the Garo Hills are the Large-toothed or Burmese Ferret Badger M. personata of Meghalaya in 2013 and 2014 warrant reporting. These and the Small-toothed or Chinese Ferret Badger M. moschata. In this context, five - M. perso- using external coat and facial patterns. To establish species natarecords, from detailed skull characteristics. here, include Four the offirst the camera-trap records are fromphoto in identityThe two visually,species are present difficult, knowledge perhaps mandatesimpossible, examination to distinguish of andgraph around from MeghalayaBalpakram andNational one record Park in identified the South as Garo Hills the skull. This is not possible for wild sightings or camera-trap photographs, so most records of Melogale, ipso facto, remain district of West Garo Hills. A sixth record comprises a new lo- calitydistrict. for The Melogale fifth record in Arunachal is from Pradesh: near the Chayang town of TajoTura in in East the therefore, suggested that “throughout their range, even single Kameng district. Geographical coordinates and altitude infor- unconfirmed to species. Coudrat & Nanthavong (2013: 48), mation for the records are summarised in Table 1, with their further complications are the naming of a third mainland spe- locations mapped on Fig. 1. Capitalised habitat types follow cies,records Cuc ofPhuong authoritative Ferret Badger identification M. cucphuongensis remain of Nadlervalue”. etTwo al., 2011 from one site in Vietnam, and indications that even some - the classification of Champion & Seth (1968). able to species on visual examination (Stefen & Feiler 2004). skullsGlobally, (from east on TheChina) IUCN may Red not List be of unambiguously Threatened Species identifi M. personata M. moschata as Least Concern (IUCN 2014). In India, both species are listed in Schedule is IIcategorised (I) of the Wildlife as Data (Protection) Deficient and Act, 1972, under which they receive a high level of protection by law. Choudhury (2013) compiled the Indian records of both spe- cies and those that were indeterminate. In India, Melogale occurs only in the eight northeast Indian states (Arunachal Pradesh, As- sam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura and Sik- kim) and in the adjoining mainland India state of West Bengal. Few ferret badger records (some museum specimens, hunting are at least ten records of M. personata from Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya,trophies and Nagaland, road-kills) West in India Bengal are andidentified Tripura. to species.The ten Thereof M. moschata come from Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland and West Bengal (Thomas 1923, Choudhury 2000, 2013). Four records of ferret badgers (a camera-trap photo- Fig. 1. Locations for six ferret badger Melogale records from Meghalaya graph; a museum specimen; a hunted animal; and a pair of (South and West Garo Hills districts) and Arunachal Pradesh (East which one was killed and the other released) have been added Kameng district) in North-east India, 2011–2014. Small Carnivore Conservation, Vol. 51: 4–10, December 2014 4 Ferret badgers in Meghalaya, India Table 1. Ferret badger Melogale records from the Garo Hills (Meghalaya) and from East Kameng (Arunachal Pradesh) India, 2011–2014. N° Date, time Place Coordinates; altitude Type of Habitat3 (m)2 evidence MEGHALAYA South Garo Hills 1 25 Apr 2013, Balpakram NP, near village 25°19′56.5″N, Camera- Dense secondary tropical MDF 03h02 of Bana. 90°43′01.2″E; 694 trap 2 8 Apr 2013, Village of Rajapara, 25°12′N, 90°56′E; 309 Dead 5 year jhum fallow, tropical MDF, 14h55 Chambukung A.king1 animal secondary growth 3 31 Mar 2014, Chimiseng Stream, 25°16′30.3″N, Direct Dense riparian tropical MEF 20h20 Balpakram NP 90°48′18.9″E; 283 sighting 4 6 Apr 2014, Chimitap village community 25°15′39.8″N, Direct Degraded community tropical 05h40 forest 90°48′44.8″E; 500 sighting MDF West Garo Hills 5 5 Oct 2013, Village of Upper Rongkhon 25°32′39.0″N, Direct Village, village woodlot 22h30 90°13′50.1″E; 390 sighting ARUNACHAL PRADESH East Kameng District 6 May 2011 Village near Chayang Tajo *27°41′N, 93°08′E; Skin Village near tropical SEF settlement1 unknown All records were unidentified to species except 2, from Rajapara, which was M. personata. 1location is site of observation of remains, not site of capture. 2Co-ordinates and altitudes were derived by a variety of means and, most, at least, are given under the WGS84 datum. *Within 2 km of indicated location. 3MDF = moist deciduous forest; MEF = moist evergreen forest; SEF = semi- evergreen forest. Records from the Balpakram – Baghmara Rewak RF (6.47 km²). The rest of the landscape is community Landscape, Garo Hills, Meghalaya land of the indigenous Garo tribe. Such land is mainly shift- ing cultivation, plantations (areca nut, cashew and rubber), The Balpakram–Baghmara Landscape of approximately 600 small community forests and villages. The landscape’s altitude km² is located in the South Garo Hills district of the state of ranges from 50 to 1,023 m asl at Chutmang peak. Primary and Meghalaya (Fig. 2). Government-owned forests cover 68% of secondary stands of Tropical Moist Evergreen Forest, Tropi- it. They comprise two protected areas, Balpakram National cal Semi-evergreen Forest and Tropical Moist Deciduous For- est occur here, as do grasslands, shola and riparian forests and degraded land (Kumar & Rao 1985). The terrain is hilly andPark two (NP; Reserve notified Forestsarea 220 (RF), km² Baghmarawith 132 km² RF acquired(43.9 km²) but and yet with deep gorges and limestone formations (Wanniang & to be notified) and Siju Wildlife Sanctuary (WLS) (5.18 km²), Thiek 2007). Four Melogale records were obtained from this area. 1. Camera-trap photograph – Balpakram National Park. Systematic camera-trapping under a three-year project ‘As- sessing Mammal Presence in the Balpakram–Baghmara Land- scape, Meghalaya, India’ is underway. The study design uses a grid of 2 × 2 km cells in which eight camera-traps per cell are deployed for 10 consecutive days. Two to three cells are sampled per session, with each cell sampled once. Twenty- four cells were sampled during January to May 2013 and No- vember 2013 to April 2014. One camera-trap was stolen. Data were obtained from 191 camera-trap stations over a total of 1,910 camera-trap-nights. A ferret badger was camera-trapped on 25 April 2013 in the Bana area of Balpakram NP (Fig. 3). The camera-trap was near a ridge top, along a trail and 500–600 m from the above the ground. The habitat was closed canopy, secondary, Tropicalnearest villageMoist Deciduousclearance. ForestIt was withfixed Cinnamomum on a tree nine bejolg feet- Fig. 2. Ferret badger Melogale record locations in the Balpakram– hota and Macaranga indica trees and a dense undergrowth Baghmara forest landscape, South Garo Hills, Meghalaya, India. of saplings on the slopes. Eurasian Wild Pig Sus scrofa and 5 Small Carnivore Conservation, Vol. 51, December 2014 Kakati et al. Red Muntjac Muntiacus muntjak were also photographed at this station. 2. Carcase of Large-toothed Ferret Badger – Rajapara Village, South Garo Hills On the afternoon of 8 April 2013 lepidopterist Sanjay Sondhi and bird-watcher Nikhil Bhopale were driving from Maheshk- hola to the district headquarters of Baghmara after a butter- A.king (an a.king is land owned by a clan for cultivation and habitation;fly and bird it survey. may have In the more Rajapara than one hamlet hamlet) of Chambukung they saw a middle-aged Garo tribal man walking with a ferret badger in (a) his hand. He said that he had killed it while it was crossing a - tion (jhum) fallow with a freshly cleared plot in it and patches ofroad secondary nearby. TheTropical area Moist was a Deciduous five-year slash-and-burn community forest cultiva with Schima wallichii, Macaranga indica, Castonopsis hystrix, Apor- osa octandra, Toona ciliata and Dillenia pentagyna trees, over an undergrowth of bamboo and broom grass Thysanolaena maxima 4a–b), and then buried it by the roadside at Mahadeo, about 5 . They confiscated the animal, took photographs (Fig. retrieved by SSr on 25 May 2013, cleaned and dried. The large upperkm down 4th thepre-molars road. The (P 4skull) and fromwell-developed the putrefied temporal carcase crests was (b) on the skull (see Storz & Wozencraft 1999) show the specimen Fig.