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Alarming Population Status of the Grizzled Giant Squirrel Ratufa Macroura (Mammalia: Rodentia: Sciuridae) in Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, the Western Ghats, India

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Alarming Population Status of the Grizzled Giant Squirrel Ratufa Macroura (Mammalia: Rodentia: Sciuridae) in Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, the Western Ghats, India OPEN ACCESS The Journal of Threatened Taxa is dedicated to building evidence for conservaton globally by publishing peer-reviewed artcles online every month at a reasonably rapid rate at www.threatenedtaxa.org. All artcles published in JoTT are registered under Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License unless otherwise mentoned. JoTT allows unrestricted use of artcles in any medium, reproducton, and distributon by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publicaton. Journal of Threatened Taxa Building evidence for conservaton globally www.threatenedtaxa.org ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) | ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Short Communication Alarming population status of the Grizzled Giant Squirrel Ratufa macroura (Mammalia: Rodentia: Sciuridae) in Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, the Western Ghats, India Kiran Thomas & Paingamadathil Ommer Nameer 26 September 2018 | Vol. 10 | No. 10 | Pages: 12350–12356 10.11609/jot.3536.10.10.12350-12356 For Focus, Scope, Aims, Policies and Guidelines visit htp://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-0 For Artcle Submission Guidelines visit htp://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/submissions#onlineSubmissions For Policies against Scientfc Misconduct visit htp://threatenedtaxa.org/index.php/JoTT/about/editorialPolicies#custom-2 For reprints contact <[email protected]> Publisher & Host Partners Member Threatened Taxa Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 September 2018 | 10(10): 12350–12356 Alarming population status of the Grizzled Giant Squirrel Ratufa macroura (Mammalia: Rodentia: Sciuridae) ISSN 0974-7907 (Online) in Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, the Western Ghats, India Short Communication Short ISSN 0974-7893 (Print) Kiran Thomas 1 & Paingamadathil Ommer Nameer 2 OPEN ACCESS 1,2 Centre for Wildlife Studies, College of Forestry, Kerala Agricultural University, Thrissur, Kerala 680656, India 1 [email protected], 2 [email protected] (corresponding author) Abstract: This study was carried out to assess the populaton of Ratufa Indian borders. These are endemic to certain pockets of macroura in Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary located in the Kerala part the Indian subcontnent, with the Indian Giant Squirrel of the southern Western Ghats. The populaton density of Ratufa macroura was estmated to be 15.26 squirrels/km2. The total count (Ratufa indica) distributed in peninsular India, the method, however, gave the populaton range between 11 to 14 Malayan Giant Squirrel Ratufa bicolor in northeastern squirrels. The current populaton estmaton is about 78–85 % lesser than the previous populaton estmaton of the Ratufa macroura India and the Grizzled Giant Squirrel Ratufa macroura carried out in 1993 and 2007 respectvely, which is quite alarming. The in peninsular India and Sri Lanka (Menon 2014; following conservaton recommendatons are suggested for the long- Borges 2015; Joshua & Johnsingh 2015). There are term conservaton of R. macroura, which include habitat restoraton to maintain the canopy contguity and regulaton of the pilgrimage and three subspecies of R. macroura. These include R. the tourism actvites in and around the R. macroura habitat. Urgent m. dandolena, which occurs in southern India and Sri steps should also be taken to undertake studies on the genetcs of R. Lanka while R. m. macroura and R. m. melanochra are macroura. It is also suggested that systematc and scientfc monitoring of the populaton of R. macroura be undertaken on a regular basis. endemic to Sri Lanka (Phillips 1981). Ratufa macroura is endemic to southern India (Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Keywords: Hybridizaton, Idukki District, Kerala, line-transect method, Nadu) and Sri Lanka. In India it is known to survive in PHVA, Ratufa indica, riverine habitat, scrub jungle. nine severely fragmented locatons, such as, the Grizzled Giant Squirrel Wildlife Sanctuary, Srivilliputhur, Theni Forest Division, Palani Hills, Anamalai Tiger Reserve, The family Sciuridae consists of 285 species of Sirumalai, Thiruvannamalai Forest Division, Hosur Forest squirrels all over the world (Thorington et al. 2012), Division and Cauvery Wildlife Sanctuary (all in Tamil of which the Indian subcontnent harbours 28 species Nadu), the Cauvery basin in Karnataka and Chinnar in 12 genera (Johnsingh & Nameer 2015; Nameer et Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala (Babu & Kalaimani 2014). al. 2015). Among the four giant arboreal squirrels The only known populaton of R. macroura in Kerala is in belonging to the genus Ratufa, three are found within Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary (CWS). The habitat of these DOI: htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.3536.10.10.12350-12356 | ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:6E8264BB-C1D8-4DA2-91C6-3B30D17DB7EB Editor: Justus Joshua, Green Future Foundaton, Tiruchirapalli, India. Date of publicaton: 26 September 2018 (online & print) Manuscript details: Ms # 3536 | Received 03 June 2017 | Final received 01 July 2018 | Finally accepted 20 August 2018 Citaton: Thomas, K. & P.O. Nameer (2018). Alarming populaton status of the Grizzled Giant Squirrel Ratufa macroura (Mammalia: Rodenta: Sciuridae) in Chinnar Wildlife Sanctuary, the Western Ghats, India. Journal of Threatened Taxa 10(10): 12350–12356; htps://doi.org/10.11609/jot.3536.10.10.12350-12356 Copyright: © Thomas & Nameer 2018. Creatve Commons Atributon 4.0 Internatonal License. JoTT allows unrestricted use of this artcle in any medium, reproduc- ton and distributon by providing adequate credit to the authors and the source of publicaton. Funding: Kerala Agricultural University. Competng interests: The authors declare no competng interests. Acknowledgements: The authors would like to thank the Chief Wildlife Warden, Kerala State Forest department sanctoning the study (No. WL10-947/2013). The Warden Munnar Wildlife Division and the Asst. Wildlife Warden, CWS provided the logistc support. We also thank the Kerala Agricultural University for the fnancial support for the study and the Dean, College of Forestry, KAU for the encouragement. Ponnusamy at Chinnar WS and Akhil Das A, provided excellent support in the feld. The 2011 batch of B.Sc. Forestry students of KAU helped us during the total populaton estmaton of the GGS. 12350 Status of Grizzled Giant Squirrel in Chinnar WS Thomas & Nameer giant squirrels in CWS is extremely unique and confned distnct and conspicuous among the surrounding scrub primarily to a narrow stretch of riparian vegetaton along jungle and dry deciduous forests of CWS. The efectve the Pambar and Chinnar rivers and their major tributaries habitat for the R. macroura at CWS is estmated to be (Ramachandran 1993). Perhaps the only long-term less than 2km2. ecological study on the Grizzled Giant Squirrels at the Srivilliputur Grizzled Giant Squirrel Wildlife Sanctuary, Methods Tamil Nadu were by Joshua & Johnsingh (1994), Joshua a. Line transect method: The line transect method et al. (2006), and Raja & Joshua (2006). by Buckland et al. (2001, 2010) was used in this study The R. macroura populaton in India has been to estmate the populaton density of R. macroura. The estmated to be <500 mature individuals. It is also fve transects were repeatedly walked once every month observed that the R. macroura populaton has been for 10 months (5x10=50) thus ffy, 2-km transects were declining at a rate greater than 30% in the last 25 years walked from April 2013 to May 2014. Each transect due to habitat loss and huntng (Molur et al. 2005; was walked by a team of three persons. Each transect Joshua et al. 2008). was walked in the morning, between 06:00–10:00 hr The previous studies on the populaton estmaton and afernoon between 15:00–18.00 hr. Thus, a total of R. macroura at CWS were by Ramachandran (1993) of 200km were walked during the study period. When and Senthilkumar et al. (2007). The populaton data a squirrel was sighted we recorded the cluster size, on a species with restricted range distributon is very which means number of individuals at a tme sighted, crucial in conservaton prioritsaton and there has not perpendicular distance, and azimuths along the transect. been any recent populaton estmaton carried out on The data collected was analysed using DISTANCE the R. macroura in CWS, and hence the present study programme (version 6.2) (Buckland et al. 2004). We was undertaken. evaluated diferent models of detecton probability, viz. uniform, half-normal and hazard rate with three Materials and Methods series adjustment terms and used the minimum Akaike Study area informaton criteria (AIC) as the standard model selecton The study was conducted in Chinnar Wildlife procedure to select the best model for estmatng Sanctuary, which is spread over an area of 90.44km². It density. Apart from the squirrel density, the encounter is located between 10.25–10.350N and 77.08–77.260E in rate (squirrel clusters/km) was also calculated. the Kerala part of the southern Western Ghats, in Idukki b. Total count: The total count of the R. macroura District (Fig. 1). The terrain of Chinnar is undulatng was carried out from seven diferent blocks within CWS. with alttudes varying between 440m and 2,372m . The Whenever a R. macroura was sighted parameters like major vegetaton types found here are, the southern the number of individuals, tme of sightng, habitat and tropical thorn forest (scrub jungle), southern dry mixed tree species on which the squirrel was sighted were deciduous forest (dry deciduous forest), southern recorded. At each of these locatons we walked for 3 to moist mixed deciduous forest (moist deciduous forest), 4h and the number of R. macroura was counted. This tropical riparian fringing forest (riparian forest), was done simultaneously deploying a group of four southern montane wet temperate forest (shola forests) people in each of the seven blocks for two days in the and southern montane wet grassland (grasslands) study area on 22–23 March 2014. (Champion & Seth 1968). The dominant vegetaton c. Regeneraton survey: A regeneraton survey was among these is the dry deciduous forest followed by carried out at the study locatons in the CWS, to fnd scrub jungle which is mainly found in the plains and at out the regeneraton of the vegetaton in the riverine lower alttude.
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