Non-Panthera Cats in South-East Asia Willcox Et Al
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ISSN 1027-2992 I Special Issue I N° 8 | SPRING 2014 Non-CATPanthera cats in newsSouth-east Asia 02 CATnews is the newsletter of the Cat Specialist Group, a component Editors: Christine & Urs Breitenmoser of the Species Survival Commission SSC of the International Union Co-chairs IUCN/SSC for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). It is published twice a year, and is Cat Specialist Group available to members and the Friends of the Cat Group. KORA, Thunstrasse 31, 3074 Muri, Switzerland For joining the Friends of the Cat Group please contact Tel ++41(31) 951 90 20 Christine Breitenmoser at [email protected] Fax ++41(31) 951 90 40 <[email protected]> Original contributions and short notes about wild cats are welcome Send <[email protected]> contributions and observations to [email protected]. Guest Editors: J. W. Duckworth Guidelines for authors are available at www.catsg.org/catnews Antony Lynam This Special Issue of CATnews has been produced with support Cover Photo: Non-Panthera cats of South-east Asia: from the Taiwan Council of Agriculture’s Forestry Bureau, Zoo Leipzig and From top centre clock-wise the Wild Cat Club. jungle cat (Photo K. Shekhar) clouded leopard (WCS Thailand Prg) Design: barbara surber, werk’sdesign gmbh fishing cat (P. Cutter) Layout: Christine Breitenmoser, Jonas Bach leopard cat (WCS Malaysia Prg) Print: Stämpfli Publikationen AG, Bern, Switzerland Asiatic golden cat (WCS Malaysia Prg) marbled cat (K. Jenks) ISSN 1027-2992 © IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group The designation of the geographical entities in this publication, and the representation of the material, do not imply the expression of any opinion whatsoever on the part of the IUCN concerning the legal status of any country, territory, or area, or its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries. CATnews Special Issue 8 Spring 2014 original contribution DANIEL H. A. WILLCOX1, TRAN QUANG PHUONG1, HOANG MINH DUC2 AND NGUYEN THE Gekko gecko to Asian elephant (Bell et al. TRUONG AN1 2004, Roberton 2007, Venkatararam 2007). Very heavy indiscriminate snaring and target- The decline of non-Panthera ed hunting are driven by a demand for wild meat, exotic pets, pelts, and for body parts, cat species in Vietnam some to be used in traditional medicine. Ur- ban Vietnam consumes so much wildlife, in Vietnam is likely to have once supported globally significant populations of leopard part as a symbol of wealth and status, that cat Prionailurus bengalensis, Asiatic golden cat Catopuma temminckii, marbled cat local subsistence use of wild mammals is Pardofelis marmorata and mainland clouded leopard Neofelis nebulosa, and prob- increasingly rare (Roberton 2007, Venkatara- ably also fishing cat Prionailurus viverrinus. Jungle cat Felis chaus is also recorded ram 2007, TRAFFIC 2008, Drury 2011). Much for Vietnam but the limited extent of the species’s preferred habitat type, deciduous is also exported, notably to China. forest, means that it is unlikely to have ever been widely distributed in the country. Impacts of these factors on Vietnam’s small The current conservation status of all these small cat species in Vietnam is poorly cats are unclear. Most small cats are elusive, understood. All traceable verifiable small cat field records from 1 January 1995 to 31 low-density species and therefore hard to de- October 2013 were collated and reviewed, as were the results of camera-trap sur- tect, and so are rarely targeted during field veys that did not record any cats at all. Only leopard cat had a sizeable number of con- surveys and are outside the focus of most firmed records. Several surveys of >1,000 camera trap nights did not record any other mainstream conservation initiatives. This species of small cat. Indiscriminate cable-snare trapping is likely to have caused review collates modern verifiable records for significant declines in Vietnam’s non-Panthera cat species, and probably extirpated Vietnam’s non-Panthera cats, to clarify each Asiatic golden cat, mainland clouded leopard and marbled cat from plausibly many of species’s national conservation status. Vietnam’s protected areas. Vietnam is unlikely to still hold globally significant popu- lations of these three species and immediate conservation efforts should focus on Methods the two countries in Indochina that are still likely to: Cambodia and Lao PDR. The last Wildlife surveys during the 1990s were gen- confirmed fishing cat record for Vietnam is now 13 years old, but given this species’s erally reconnaissances of the conservation relative tolerance to human-induced habitat changes, and the relatively low amount significance of declared or potential pro- of snare-trapping in its preferred wetland mosaic habitats, targeted searches for this tected areas. Most focused on diurnal land species in Vietnam are warranted and are a regional conservation priority. vertebrates and lasted less than a month. 53 Such surveys are poorly suited to elusive, Vietnam lies in the Indo-Burma hotspot (My- deciduous dipterocarp forests (Duckworth low density, partly nocturnal animals such as ers et al. 2000, CEPF 2012), among the most et al. 2005) and fishing cat may have been small cats. Their verifiable small cat records biodiverse regions on Earth. It covers approxi- mostly coastal, as has been suggested for were mostly of captive animals and hunted mately 330,000 km2 of land from sea level to some other South-east Asian range countries remains where a local provenance seemed 3,000 m, with one of the longest coastlines (Duckworth et al. 2010). likely; a few were direct sightings. in the region (3,260 km) and two large deltas: Vietnam is within a national species extinction Camera trapping, among the best methods the Mekong in the south and the Red River crisis. Javan rhinoceros Rhinocerus sondaicus, for verifiable records with accurate locations, in the north. The Annamite Mountains, along kouprey Bos sauveli, hog deer Axis porcinus, was used effectively from 1998 onwards. much of the country’s western border, are rec- and Bengal florican Houbaropsis bengalensis Most of the large-scale such surveys aimed ognised for their high endemism (Baltzer et (Platt & Ngo 2000, Brook et al. 2011, IUCN to establish a site’s conservation significance al. 2001, Sterling et al. 2006, CEPF 2012). In 2013) were extirpated from Vietnam during for mammals and birds. Few surveys targeted the North, the Hoang Lien Mountain Range, the late twentieth century and early twenty- small carnivores. Camera trap-use declined seen by some as the Himalayas’ eastern first century. Other species perilously close from 2005, and few surveys ever exceeded extremity, contains several Sino-Himalayan to extirpation include Asian elephant Elephas one year, hindering assessment of these spe- plant and animal species. Vietnam has a di- maximus, giant ibis Thaumatibis gigantea, cies’ population trends. verse range of habitats including evergreen, and tiger Panthera tigris (IUCN 2013). Hence to inform small cat conservation status semi-evergreen and deciduous forests, lime- These losses, and ongoing declines in many in Vietnam, this review collates all traceable stone karsts, and various types of wetland in- others, are driven by wildlife hunting and field records for small cats (excluding do- cluding Melaleuca cajuputi-dominated peat- in some cases exacerbated by habitat loss. mestic cat F. catus) in Vietnam from 1 Janu- swamp forest. Viet-nam’s human population is high (93 mil- ary 1995 to 31 October 2013. Records were Historical records of non-Panthera (hereafter lion) and much lowland evergreen forest, compiled from direct observations, camera ‘small’) cats in Vietnam comprise six spe- grassland and wetland are now agriculture trap images, and remains and captives in vil- cies (e.g. Osgood 1932, Delacour 1940; Sup- (Wege et al. 1999, Brooks et al. 2002, Sodhi lages within and near natural or semi-natural porting Online Material SOM T1). Based on et al. 2004). Even the higher altitude forest areas, where origin was explicitly investi- habitats occupied by each species elsewhere types, better protected by natural factors, gated. Direct observations were only consid- in South-east Asia, the country previously still suffer severe human-induced distur- ered confirmed if supported by photographic would have supported large populations of at bance. evidence and/or supporting notes, with the least four of these; however, jungle cat was Vietnam’s pernicious wildlife trade includes exception of leopard cat records which seem plausibly confined in Vietnam to its restricted animals ranging in size from tokay gecko very rarely erroneous. Notes were not requir- Non-Panthera cats in South-east Asia Willcox et al. mune, west of the northerly part of Ngoc Linh Ba Na NR (Frontier Vietnam 1996). No further proposed NR, Kon Tum province (Le Trong Trai details on the observation could be traced, so et al. 1999). A marbled cat ‘specimen’ was this record is treated as provisional. observed during village interviews in Cham A captive animal and remains were observed Chu proposed Nature Reserve, Tuyen Quang in Ben En NP in 1997 and 1998 respectively province (Le Khac Quyet et al. 2001). No de- (Frontier Vietnam 2000), and a ‘specimen’ tails were provided on whether the ‘speci- (age and body part unclear) was observed in men’ was freshly killed or a preserved skin or Mu Cang Chai Species/Habitat Conservation other part, but the report states that it had a Area SHCA, Yan Bai province (Le Trong Dat ‘known location of capture and caught within & Le Minh Phong 2010). These three records the previous year’. No supporting notes or lacked photographs or supporting notes so all photographs could be traced for these re- are treated as provisional. Single confisca- cords, and therefore both have been consid- tions were reported in 2004 and 2005, near or Fig. 1. Asiatic golden cat camera trapped ered provisional.