Using questionnaire surveys and occupancy modelling to identify conservation priorities for the Critically Endangered Balkan lynx Lynx lynx balcanicus D IME M ELOVSKI,MANUELA VON A RX,VASKO A VUKATOV C HRISTINE B REITENMOSER-WÜRSTEN,MARINA Đ UROVIĆ ,RAFET E LEZI O LIVIER G IMENEZ,BLEDI H OXHA,SLAVCHO H RISTOVSKI,GJORGJE I VANOV A LEXANDROS A. KARAMANLIDIS,TABEA L ANZ,KUJTIM M ERSINI A LEKSANDAR P EROVIĆ ,AZEM R AMADANI,BARDH S ANAJA,PARSIM S ANAJA G ABRIEL S CHWADERER,ANNETTE S PANGENBERG,ALEKSANDAR S TOJANOV A LEKSANDËR T RAJÇE and U RS B REITENMOSER Abstract With an estimated , adult individuals remain- poaching of lynx, and damage to livestock by lynx. ing, the Critically Endangered Balkan lynx Lynx lynx balca- Poaching was intense throughout the potential range of nicus is one of the rarest, most threatened and least-studied the subspecies, apparently having affected –% of the large carnivores. To identify priority conservation areas and total estimated extant population. Damage to livestock actions for the subspecies, during – we conducted was recorded only in relation to sheep, mainly in the south- , questionnaire surveys throughout the potential range ern part of the lynx’s potential range. Occupancy modelling of the Balkan lynx to () evaluate human–lynx interactions indicated grid cells with high probability of site use, and identify potential threats, and () determine the prob- which was affected mainly by increased terrain ruggedness ability of site use in grid cells through occupancy mod- and reduced forest cover. Based on the combined results of elling. Human–lynx interactions were related mainly to our study we identified five priority areas for conservation, as well as in situ habitat protection, community participa- tion in the conservation of the subspecies, and the improve- DIME MELOVSKI* (Corresponding author), VASKO AVUKATOV,SLAVCHO ment and implementation of the existing legal framework as Hristovski†,GJORGJE IVANOV and ALEKSANDAR STOJANOV Macedonian Ecological Society, Skopje, Macedonia. E-mail [email protected] the priority conservation actions for the Balkan lynx. MANUELA VON ARX,CHRISTINE BREITENMOSER-WÜRSTEN,TABEA LANZ and URS Keywords Balkan lynx, conservation, Critically Endan- BREITENMOSER‡ KORA, Carnivore Ecology and Wildlife Management, Bern, Switzerland gered subspecies, distribution range, local ecological knowl- edge, occupancy modelling, questionnaire surveys MARINA ĐUROVIĆ Public Enterprise for National Parks of Montenegro, Podgorica, Montenegro The data and R code for the analyses are available at RAFET ELEZI and AZEM RAMADANI Finch, Prizren, Kosovo https://github.com/oliviergimenez/occ_balkanlynx OLIVIER GIMENEZ Centre d’Écologie Fonctionnelle et Évolutive, CNRS, Université Montpellier, Montpellier, France BLEDI HOXHA,KUJTIM MERSINI and ALEKSANDËR TRAJÇE Protection and Preservation of Natural Environment in Albania, Tirana, Albania Introduction ALEXANDROS A. KARAMANLIDIS Faculty of Environmental Sciences and Natural Resource Management, Norwegian University of Life Sciences, Ås, Norway n the midst of a global biodiversity crisis (Butchart et al., ALEKSANDAR PEROVIĆ Centre for Protection and Research of Birds, Podgorica, I ) Europe has been witnessing a resurgence in its Montenegro wildlife, with several species showing signs of population re- BARDH SANAJA and PARSIM SANAJA Environmentally Responsible Action Group, covery (Deinet et al., ). Because of the charismatic na- Peja, Kosovo ture of large carnivores, and the challenges associated with GABRIEL SCHWADERER and ANNETTE SPANGENBERG EuroNatur Foundation, effectively managing and protecting them, their recovery Radolfzell, Germany has received considerable public attention in Europe *Also at: Faculty of Forest Sciences, Wildlife Sciences, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany (Chapron et al., ). Large carnivores have been recover- †Also at: Institute of Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Ss. ing across the continent, including the Balkan Peninsula Cyrill and Methodius University, Skopje, Macedonia (Karamanlidis et al., ; Ivanov et al., ); however, an ‡Also at: Centre for Fish and Wildlife Health, University of Bern, Bern, Switzerland exception to this positive development is the Critically Received December . Revision requested March . Endangered Balkan lynx Lynx lynx balcanicus (Melovski Accepted March . et al., ). Oryx, Page 1 of 9 © 2018 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318000492 2 D. Melovski et al. The Balkan lynx was described in the th century (Lahoz‐Monfort et al., ). Therefore, site-occupancy (Bureš, ) but it was not until the early st century models have been developed specifically to distinguish be- that genetic evidence indicated its taxonomic status as a sub- tween non-detection and absence by modelling the imperfect, species of the Eurasian lynx Lynx lynx (Breitenmoser- possibly heterogeneous observation process (MacKenzie, Würsten & Obexer-Ruff, ; Gugolz et al., ). ). This modelling framework has been used successfully Although the phylogenetic relationship of the Balkan lynx to analyse data from multiple interviewees reporting the de- to other subspecies of Eurasian lynx is still unclear, its mor- tection or non-detection of large carnivores and to infer their phological distinctiveness and isolation from the nearest distribution, accounting for imperfect detection (e.g. Petracca lynx subspecies in the Carpathian Mountains (Mirić, ) et al., ; Taubmann et al., ). justifies its recognition as a distinct evolutionary significant The main aims of this study were to use a questionnaire unit for conservation (Vogler & Desalle, ). survey to () evaluate human–lynx interactions to identify Historically, the Balkan lynx suffered a fate similar to that potential threats to the survival of the Balkan lynx, and of most other large carnivores in Europe, where increased () determine the probability of site use. The results are used habitat alteration and persecution led to its extermination to identify research and conservation priorities to safeguard from large parts of the continent (Breitenmoser, ). the survival of this subspecies. Following World War II legal and administrative actions re- sulted in the partial recovery of the subspecies; in the population was estimated to comprise individuals, lo- Study area cated mainly in the south-west of the Balkan Peninsula (Mirić, ). However, political unrest in the region at the The study was conducted in presumed distribution areas turn of the century combined with habitat deterioration and of the Balkan lynx (von Arx et al., ; Kaczensky et al., poaching are believed to have led to a sharp population de- a,b), including areas that were considered by Grubač cline and range constriction, which has brought the Balkan (, ) to be potentially within the subspecies’ lynx to the brink of extinction (Melovski, ): it is esti- range. We also included some localities outside the pre- mated that there are , adult individuals remaining in sumed area of distribution, for which circumstantial evi- the wild, hence the subspecies’ categorization as Critically dence indicated the presence of the subspecies (Grubač, Endangered on the IUCN Red List (Melovski et al., ). ). Thus, the study area comprised , km of pre- The Balkan lynx is legally protected in Albania, Kosovo (re- dominantly mountainous terrain in Albania, Kosovo, ferred to according to U.N. Security Council Resolution Macedonia and Montenegro (Fig. ). The mean altitude of ) and Macedonia (for reasons of neutrality and brevity the villages where questionnaire surveys were carried out the name Macedonia is used for the country with the con- was , m and the mean human population density was stitutional name Republic of Macedonia, admitted to the . people per km (Kosovo Agency of Statistics, ; UN under the provisional designation ‘the former Institute of Statistics, Albania, ; Statistical Office of Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’), and a compensation sys- Montenegro, ; State Statistical Office, Macedonia, tem for damage to livestock by lynx has been established in ). The vegetation in the study area is predominantly for- Macedonia. Effective conservation of biodiversity requires est, with beech Fagus sylvatica, fir Abies borisii-regis and detailed, quantitative scientific information, which for various types of oak Quercus spp. The region is character- many wildlife populations is not available (Gilchrist et al., ized by high-mountain pastures, river valleys and rural an- ). There has therefore been increasing consensus thropogenic landscapes. among conservationists that alternative sources of informa- tion are necessary for protecting nature and that local eco- logical knowledge can provide important information on Methods the status of wildlife populations and should be integrated in environmental management (Drew, ; Anadón Sampling approach and data collection et al., ). Local ecological knowledge has been used to provide in- Following the design of similar surveys of large carnivores in formation on species’ distributions and status over large Europe (e.g. Kaczensky et al., a,b; Chapron et al., ) landscapes, with moderate effort (Taubmann et al., ). and taking into account the home ranges of the European However, there are limitations and caveats regarding its (Breitenmoser-Würsten et al., ) and Balkan lynx use (Caruso et al., ), especially when dealing with popu- (D. Melovski, unpubl. data), the study area was overlaid lations of large carnivores for which detectability is almost with