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ISSN 1027-2992 I Special Issue I N° 8 | SPRING 2014 Non-CATPanthera in newsSouth-east 02

CATnews is the newsletter of the Specialist Group, a component Editors: Christine & Urs Breitenmoser of the 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, 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 Original contributions and short notes about wild cats are welcome Send 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- cats of South-: from the Council of Agriculture’s Forestry Bureau, Leipzig and From top centre clock-wise the Wild Cat Club. (Photo K. Shekhar) clouded (WCS Prg) Design: barbara surber, werk’sdesign gmbh (P. Cutter) Layout: Christine Breitenmoser, Jonas Bach (WCS Prg) Print: Stämpfli Publikationen AG, Bern, Switzerland Asiatic golden cat (WCS Malaysia Prg) (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, , or area, or its authorities, or concerning the delimitation of its frontiers or boundaries.

CATnews Special Issue 8 Spring 2014 original contribution

SAKSIT SIMCHAROEN1, MAYUREE UMPONJAN2*, SOMPHOT DUANGCHANTRASIRI1 AND law, Thailand’s Office of Natural Resources ANAK PATTANAVIBOOL2 and Environmental Policy and Planning has reported, based on expert opinions, the sta- Non-Panthera cat records from tus of threatened species in Thailand and list- ed jungle cat and flat-headed cat as ‘critically monitoring in Huai Kha endangered’, marbled cat as ‘endangered’, and , fishing cat and Asiatic Khaeng Sanctuary golden cat as ‘vulnerable’ species; leopard cat is the only species considered nationally A camera-trapping deployment for Panthera monitoring in Huai Kha Khaeng of least concern (Nabhitabhata & Chan-ard Wildlife Sanctuary HKK, in the Western Complex WEFCOM of Thailand, was 2005). carried out intensively between 2005 and 2009. The deployment’s annual setup in- Non-Panthera cats in the wild in Thailand cluded an average of 162 camera-trap locations with more than 2,000 trap-nights and have received less attention than the two covered almost 1,000 km2. Many other wildlife species were photographed including large cats, tiger and leopard. Leopard cat was small and medium (non-Panthera) cats. This analysis explores the potential use of studied in HKK in the late 1980s (Rabinowitz the system to monitor cat species other than tiger and leopard Panthera pardus. In 1990). From the late 1990s to mid 2000s came five years, leopard and tiger, major targets of the deployment, were camera-trapped a string of publications: leopard cat in Kaeng in 653 and 483 notionally independent events respectively. Among non-Panthera cats, Krachan National Park, Southern Thailand leopard cat bengalensis was the most common, with 155 events. Inde- (Grassman 1998), clouded leopard in Khao Yai pendent events of three other non-Panthera cats were rare: ten of Asiatic golden cat National Park, Northeastern Thailand (Austin temminckii, six of mainland clouded leopard nebulosa, and only & Tewes 1999), and leopard cat and marbled two of marbled cat marmorata. Leopard cat in HKK used mixed deciduous cat in Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary, Northern forest heavily and showed an obvious crepuscular and nocturnal activity pattern. central Thailand (Grassman & Tewes 2000, The camera-trapping deployment for in HKK could be used to monitor leopard 2002, Grassman et al. 2005). Since 2005, re- cats, but different deployment designs would be necessary for other non-Panthera sources and man power have been heavily in- cats at this site. vested in conservation of Panthera species es- pecially tiger (Simcharoen et al. 2007, Lynam South-east Asia is home to nine small and cats are under-represented in field studies 2010, Stokes 2010), in Thailand’s Western 31 medium cat species (i.e. excluding Pan- (Grassman et al. 2005). Four of the seven spe- Forest Complex WEFCOM. thera). Of these, seven occur in Thailand (all cies are categorised as globally threatened WEFCOM is categorised as a Tiger Conserva- those of mainland ): jungle cat by The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. tion Landscape Class I (one that has to chaus, leopard cat, fishing cat Prionai- In Thai law, marbled cat is listed as ‘endan- support at least 100 tigers, evidence of breed- lurus viverrinus, flat-headed cat P. planiceps, gered’ and the rest as ‘protected’ under the ing, minimal-moderate levels of threat, and Asiatic golden cat, marbled cat and clouded Wildlife Preservation and Protection Act B. E. conservation measures in place), and Global leopard (Wilson & Mittermeier 2009). In Thai- 2535 (A. D. 1992) (Wildlife Conservation Divi- priority (highest probability of persistence of land as in much of the world, non-Panthera sion 1992, Boonboothara 1996). Besides the tiger populations over the long term; Diner- stein et al. 2006). Within WEFCOM, HKK is a core area where tiger and leopard ecology has been thoroughly studied, and populations estimated (Simcharoen et al. 2007, 2008). Camera-trapping started in a systematic man- ner in 2005, following the setup described in Karanth & Nichols (2002). Although designed for tigers, the deployment also photographed non-Panthera cats and many other species. This study uses by-catch from the long-term camera-trapping deployment in HKK to (1) examine the records of non-Panthera cats, and present what can be learned about status and natural history, and (2) discuss whether the programme generates sufficient non-Panthera cat records to allow these species’ to be moni- tored using such deployments.

Study Area Fig. 1. Location of Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, the major habitat types, and the Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary (15°00’- locations of camera-traps. 15°50’N/99°00’- 99°19’E) is one of the best-

Non-Panthera cats in South-east Asia Simcharoen et al.

2005 2006 2007

2008 2009

32

Fig. 2. Locations of camera-traps in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary showing where Fig. 3. Camera-trap points where Asiatic leopard cat was detected (red dots) and not detected (black dots) each year during 2005– golden cat, clouded leopard and marbled 2009. The background shows forest types. cat were detected in HKK WS 2005-2009.

known protected areas in Thailand (WEFCOM mountain range plays an important role in more rain in the west and less in the east, 2004; Fig. 1). It covers 2,780 km2 and is part blocking the southwest monsoon flowing in a variation causing significant differences in of a much bigger (18,000 km2) from . The southern part of HKK is vegetation . network called the Western Forest Complex generally lower with many small hills of 700- HKK consists of mixed deciduous forest over WEFCOM. HKK was declared a wildlife sanc- 800 m high (Forest Research Centre 1997). almost half of the sanctuary. The other fo- tuary in 1972. Currently there are 19 ranger The climate is a mix of tropical and sub-trop- rest types include dry evergreen (25%), hill stations, located mostly along the eastern ical, has three seasons: the hot dry season evergreen (14%), dry dipterocarp (7%) and boundary, to protect HKK from and of March-April with average temperature of bamboo forest (4%) (WEFCOM 2004). The land encroachment (WEFCOM 2004). 24°-38°C, the rainy season of May-October open dominant forest types of mixed decidu- HKK is part of the Dawna Range, north of the with 23°-34° C, and the cool dry season of ous and dry dipterocarp occur at elevations Tenasserim Range, separating northwestern December-February with 18°-21°C (Forest of 450-900 m. The forest is sometimes mixed Thailand from Myanmar. HKK topography is Research Centre 1997). The average annual with bamboos (major bamboo species: Bam- more mountainous to the north and west of rainfall is about 1,500 mm with the minimum busa arundincea, B. burmanica, Dendrocala- the area, with ridges exceeding 1,000 m. This in January and maximum in October. There is mus strictus, Gigantochloa albociliata). The

CATnews Special Issue 8 Spring 2014 non-Panthera cats in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary dominant tree species in the crown layer in- Table 1. The number of notionally independent events for cat species during camera- clude Afzelia xylocarpa, Tetrameles nudifora, trapping in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary during 2005-2009. When both cameras Lagerstroemia tomentosa, L. duperreanna, in a pair photographed an , this is recorded as only one record. Shorea obtusa, S. siamensis, Dipterocarpus Number of notionally independent events obtusifolis and D. tuberculatus (Forest Re- Species 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Total search Centre 1997). Tiger 107 68 91 111 106 483 Methods Leopard 133 138 139 115 128 653 For this study, data from camera-trapping Clouded leopard 2 2 1 0 1 6 collected between 2005 and 2009 were ana- Asiatic golden cat 0 3 1 2 4 10 lysed. The deployments occurred mainly in Leopard cat 9 24 56 12 54 155 the two open dominant forest types, given Marbled cat 1 0 0 1 0 2 that the main target species was the tiger. Total camera-trap-nights 2,241 2,020 2,467 2,804 2,731 Tigers prefer open where, with their grass base, large such as staff, with support from two wildlife biolo- of small and medium cat (Table 1). No do- Bos gaurus and banteng B. javanicus mostly gists, with more than five years of experience mestic cats Felis catus were captured during reside (Prayurasiddhi 1997). The camera- of camera trapping, in case of doubts. All these surveys. Tables 1 and 2 also contain trapping areas covered about 1,000 km2 of photographs of cats were scanned, put into results for tiger and leopard, for comparison this near-optimal tiger habitat. Almost 80% a database and identification of all photo- with the smaller species; detailed analysis of of camera-trap locations were in mixed de- graphs listed as non-Panthera were assessed Panthera data will be published elsewhere. ciduous and dry dipterocarp forests, 17% in independently by J. W. Duckworth. Records degraded evergreen, and the rest in other were calculated in terms of: 1) number of in- Number of notionally independent events vegetation types. dependent events, and 2) number of camera- Each year the camera-traps were deployed Several camera-trap models, including trap stations detecting the species. To assess for more than 2,000 trap-nights with a total CamTrakker, Bushnell and Scoutguard, were conservation status, the photographs at one of 12,263 trap-nights over the five years. set up following the standard method used camera-trap station are not independent if The numbers of independent events for non- for monitoring tigers, detailed in Karanth & they show the same animal. This problem is Panthera cats are much lower than Panthera Nichols (2002). Camera-traps were located reduced by presenting the number of camera- cats (Table 1). Leopard cat was the most fre- 33 mainly along forest roads and animal trails, trap stations recording the species, although quently detected small cat. Clouded leopard and at salt licks. At each location camera- even this will not exclude non-independent and golden cat events ranged from very few traps were set in a pair, each unit 3-5 m from records if multiple camera-trap stations are to none per year; marbled cat was detected the path and about 45 cm above ground. No within a typical individual’s . No- only twice (Supporting Online Material SOM bait was used. Camera-traps were set to tionally independent events are defined as Table T1). function throughout the 24-hour cycle. one or more photographs of one or more ani- The spacing between camera-trap locations mals of the same species at a given camera- Number of camera-trap stations detecting was about 3-4 km, based on female tiger trap location, separated by no more than 30 the species home-range (Karanth & Nichols 2002). With minutes. Between 150 and 190 camera-trap stations about 180 camera-trap locations each year, Camera-trap locations were overlaid with a were set each year, covering almost 1,000 trapping was divided into eight blocks of habitat map interpreted from LANDSAT 5 TM km2. and tigers were the most 20-25 trapping locations. The camera-traps 2002 (WEFCOM 2004) to determine the veg- widely detected cat species (Table 2). Among were left in each block for 15-20 days before etation cover at each location. non-Panthera cats, leopard cat had the wid- being relocated to another block. Two blocks est detection, but even so each year less than were sampled simultaneously. Trapping nor- Results one-sixth of camera-trap stations detected mally started in January and finished by mid Tiger-focussed camera-trapping in HKK be- leopard cats. The other three cats were found May. For an optimal setting of cameras, lo- tween 2005 and 2009 captured four species at very few stations. cations within a block were moved slightly between years. Thus, spacing between ca- Table 2. The number of camera-trap stations recording each species in Huai Kha mera-trap locations used in different years Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary during 2005-2009. was frequently well below 3-4 km, and the Number of stations where the species were recorded total number of camera-trap locations at Species 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Total which some species were found over the five years exceeded the 180 total camera-trap lo- Tiger 58 46 52 67 64 287 cations per year. Leopard 77 61 76 61 63 338 The total of camera-trap-nights is the sum Clouded leopard 1 2 1 0 1 5 of the number of nights each pair of cam- Asiatic golden cat 0 3 1 2 4 10 eras was open functioning at all camera- Leopard cat 9 14 29 7 33 92 trap locations. Species identification from Marbled cat 1 0 0 1 0 2 photographs was carried out by the project Total camera-trap locations 155 136 156 180 186

Non-Panthera cats in South-east Asia Simcharoen et al.

basis for the 1989 report warrants a review. Jungle cat apparently occurs predominantly in deciduous forest in South-east Asia ( Duck- worth et al. 2005), so parts of HKK might be expected to support it. However, no records were obtained from this intensive camera- trapping survey, mostly in deciduous forest, despite reasonable trapping rates described in other studies (e.g. Gray et al. 2014), sug- gesting that jungle cat is rare or even absent from HKK. The other small cat of Thailand, the flat-headed cat, does not occur this far north (Wilting et al. 2010).

Fig. 4. Clouded leopard on 3 June 2006, 23:49 h. Habitat: Mixed deciduous forest. Small cat community In HKK, leopard cat is common but golden Leopard cat habitat use and activity pattern Discussion cat, clouded leopard and marbled cat were Leopard cat was the only small cat with suf- Leopard cat all recorded only rarely. Focused camera- ficient camera-trap records (92 locations in five Leopard cat is the only small cat species so far trapping in HKK’s evergreen forests might years) for an analysis of habitat use (SOM T2). studied intensively in multiple parts of Thai- find these three species more often, but they Caution is required in interpretation because land (Rabinowitz 1990, Grassman et al. 2005). are evidently rare in HKK’s deciduous forest. patterns may be biased by the selection of Similarly, it is the only species with enough Observations in other areas suggest that camera-trap locations, and refer only to the camera-trap detections in HKK for a confident leopard cat population increases when larger late dry season. Almost 70% of camera-trap discussion of abundance and habitat use at predators, such as golden cat and clouded locations with leopard cat detection were in the site, albeit only for the late dry season. leopard, are eliminated (Wilson & Mittermei- mixed deciduous forest (SOM T2; Fig. 2), while It was photographed in many habitat-types, er 2009). Release of leopard cat population the other two open canopy forest types, dry coinciding with its generally wide habitat use with reduction of interspecific competition 34 dipterocarp (10%) and degraded dry evergreen (Wilson & Mittermeier 2009). In HKK the high from golden cat and marbled cat is plausible, forests (15%) were used to a lesser extent. encounter rates in mixed deciduous forest because the three species presumably share Leopard cat was also the only small cat spe- may simply reflect disproportionate survey similar small prey such as rodents, reptiles, cies with enough data to allow for the analysis effort. However, the low encounter rate in , amphibians and insects. However, it is of activity patterns. At least in the late dry sea- dry dipterocarp forest relative to survey ef- less likely for clouded leopard, which preys son, it is nocturnal, with the main activity start- fort corroborates earlier findings in HKK that on larger such as (Hystri- ing after 18:00 h and peaking during 19:00 h it uses mixed deciduous and dry evergreen cidae), pigs Sus spp., young sambar Rusa uni- - 22:00 h and fluctuating from 22:00 h to 06:00 forests more than dry dipterocarp forest with color, muntjacs Muntiacus spp., chevrotains h. It is almost inactive by day (SOM Figure F1). its lower dry-season grass base, and thus Tragulus spp. and palm () lower cover and prey (Rabinowitz 1990). Wet- (Wilson & Mittermeier 2009). In this study, of Asiatic golden cat season surveys, when dry dipterocarp forest clouded leopard seems to use evergreen for- Of the 10 records of golden cat, seven were has rich understorey growth, might reveal a est more frequently than leopard cat, which is of golden animals and three of grey ones. very different habitat use. found more in deciduous forest. These results found leopard cat to be cre- puscular and nocturnal, with very few pho- Conclusions and management implica- tographs by day. Radio-collared leopard cats tions in Phu Khieo Wildlife Sanctuary, northeast- Intensive camera-trap deployment for tigers ern Thailand, in more evergreen , in Huai Kha Kheang Wildlife Sanctuary from showed somewhat more daytime activity, 2005 to 2009 captured six cat species: tiger, while still being mainly crepuscular and noc- leopard, clouded leopard, golden cat, marbled turnal (Grassman et al. 2005). cat and leopard cat. Tiger and leopard were recorded often. Of the non-Panthera cats, Other non-Panthera cats leopard cat was found commonly whereas Fishing cat was reported in the Master Plan golden cat, clouded leopard and marbled cat of HKK in 1989 (Thailand Faculty of Forestry were rarely found. 1989). It was not detected in the 2005-2009 Thus, camera-trapping for tigers in Huai Kha camera-trap deployment, which covered Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary provides useful large areas including near streams, and data to study abundance patterns, activity seems very unlikely to occur there presently. rhythms, and habitat use of leopard cat, but Fig. 5. Leopard cat on 23 April 2006, Because individuals of this species are often data are too sparse for a similar analysis of 14:59 h. Habitat: Mixed deciduous forest. misidentified, (Duckworth et al. 2009), the clouded leopard, golden cat and marbled cat.

CATnews Special Issue 8 Spring 2014 non-Panthera cats in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary

Moreover, annual numbers of leopard cat independent events fluctuated considerably during this five-year study, making it diffi- cult to use this method to assess population trends during short periods of time. To monitor clouded leopard, golden cat and marbled cat, other camera-trapping study de- signs would need to be experimented with, such as placing more camera-trap stations in evergreen forests, or around fruiting trees with high rodent concentration.

Acknowledgements Fig. 6. Asiatic golden cat on 16 March 2006 08:04 h. Habitat: Hill . Funding for this study was from US and Wild- life Service: Rhino and Fund, galensis) in a subtropical evergreen forest Simcharoen S., Pattanavibool A., Karanth K. U., Panthera, and Liz Claiborne and Art Ortenberg in southern Thailand. Zoological Society La Nichols J. D. & Kumar N. S. 2007. How many Foundation. We are grateful to the Thai govern- Torbiera, Scientific Report 4, 9-21. tigers Panthera tigris are there in Huai Kha ment’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Grassman, L. I. & Tewes M. E. 2000. Marbled cat Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, Thailand? An es- Plant Conservation and the Wildlife Conservation pair in northeastern Thailand. Cat News 33, 24. timate using photographic capture-recapture Society (WCS) for the logistics and technical sup- Grassman, L. I., & Tewes M. E. 2002. Marbled cat sampling. Oryx 41, 447-453. port. 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Non-Panthera cats in South-east Asia