Conservation implications for the Himalayan wolf Canis (lupus) himalayensis based on observations of packs and home sites in Nepal G ERALDINE W ERHAHN,NARESH K USI C LAUDIO S ILLERO-ZUBIRI and D AVID W. MACDONALD Abstract We provide insights into pack composition and et al., ). Potential wolf habitat exists across large parts den site parameters of the Himalayan wolf Canis (lupus) of the Nepalese Himalayas (. %) but the size of the wolf himalayensis based on observations of free-ranging wolves population in the country remains unknown; there are gene- in three study areas in Nepal. We combine this with a tically verified records from Mustang, Dolpa and Humla social survey of the local Buddhist communities regarding (Subba, ;Chetrietal.,; Subba et al., ;Werhahn human–carnivore conflict, to draw inferences for conserva- et al., ), and sign surveys have indicated wolf presence in tion practice in the Nepalese Himalayas. We recorded eight Manaslu, Api Nampa and Kanchenjunga Conservation Areas wolf packs (with an average composition of two adults and (Subba et al., ;GW&NK,pers.obs.,). three pups), and found five home sites in high-altitude The wolf is protected as a priority species in Nepal under shrubland patches within alpine grasslands at ,–, m the National Parks and Wildlife Conservation Act altitude. There was a spatial–temporal overlap of wolf home () and is categorized nationally as Critically Endangered sites and livestock herding during spring and summer, (GoN, ; Jnawali et al., ). Nepal’s wildlife damage re- which facilitated human–wolf conflict. The litters of three lief guidelines include the wolf in the national compensation out of five wolf packs found in Dolpa during were killed scheme in its first amendment (GoN, ), but this legal by local people in the same year. In Nepal compensation is basis awaits implementation. offered for depredation by snow leopards Panthera uncia, Little is known about the denning ecology of the with associated lowering of negative attitudes, but not for Himalayan wolf in the remote and rugged high-altitude land- depredation by wolves. We recommend the implementation scapes of the Himalayas and the Tibetan Plateau (Werhahn of financial and educational conservation schemes for all et al., ) but similarities to the Holarctic grey wolf Canis conflict-causing carnivores across the Himalayan regions lupus spp. are expected (Mech & Boitani, ). of Nepal. Keywords Canis (lupus) himalayensis, conflict, conserva- Methods tion, denning, Himalayan wolf, Nepal, social survey, wolf pack This study was conducted in Humla and Dolpa districts in north-western Nepal, and Kanchenjunga Conservation Area in north-eastern Nepal, during the spring and summer seasons of – (Fig. ). The Humla site lies outside the Introduction protected area system, whereas large parts of the Dolpa site he Himalayan wolf is a distinct lineage occurring in the are situated within Shey Phoksundo National Park, and THimalayas and on the Tibetan Plateau. Genetic evi- Kanchenjunga Conservation Area is a community-managed dence supporting its classification as a separate taxon, conservation area. All three study areas are used seasonally Canis (lupus) himalayensis, is accumulating (Sharma et al., by herders in the late spring and summer to graze yak Bos ; Aggarwal et al., ; Werhahn et al., ). The dis- grunniens, cattle Bos taurus and goats Capra aegagrus hircus tribution range, population status and ecology of this wolf (Bauer, ). The vegetation in these areas is dominated remain poorly known (Fox & Chundawat, ; Jnawali by alpine grasslands and steppes interspersed with patches of shrubland (Miehe et al., ), at ,–, m altitude. In Humla we searched km for wolves (walking km GERALDINE WERHAHN (Corresponding author), CLAUDIO SILLERO-ZUBIRI* and in and km in ), in Dolpa , km (walking DAVID W. MACDONALD Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, The Recanati-Kaplan Centre, Tubney House, km in and km in ), and in Kanchenjunga Tubney OX13 5QL, UK. E-mail [email protected] Conservation Area km (walking km in ). NARESH KUSI Resources Himalaya Foundation, Sanepa, Lalitpur, Nepal We collected data on wolf packs through direct observa- *Also at: IUCN SSC Canid Specialist Group, Oxford, UK tions, examination of home sites, and reports of sightings Received April . Revision requested May . by local people, which were later verified by examining Accepted June . First published online September . distances between recorded home sites. Home sites, This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is unaltered and is properly cited. The written permission of Cambridge DownloadedUniversity from https://www.cambridge.org/core Press must be obtained for commercial. IP address: re-use 170.106.35.76 or in order to, createon 02 aOct derivative 2021 at work.07:17:28, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/termsOryx, 2019, 53(4), 663–669 ©. https://doi.org/10.1017/S00306053170010772017 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605317001077 664 G. Werhahn et al. FIG. 1 Locations of the three study sites in the Himalayas in Nepal: Humla (outside the protected area network), Dolpa (partly within Shey Phoksundo National Park), and the community-managed Kanchenjunga Conservation Area. comprising den and rendezvous sites, were characterized by In Dolpa and Kanchenjunga Conservation Area a per- abundant recent scats of pups and adults, along with bones ceived increase in the wolf population was reflected in a and other food remains. Den sites additionally comprised a perceived increase in depredation by wolves. In Humla, den cave (Mech & Boitani, ). however, a perceived decrease in the wolf population corre- To investigate human–carnivore conflict we conducted lated with a perceived decrease in depredation (Figs & ); semi-structured social surveys during the field work expedi- local people attributed this decrease in depredation largely tions of –, with respondents from the local to the lower numbers of livestock kept now compared to the Buddhist communities ( (%) in Humla, (%) in past. In Humla and Dolpa snow leopards were ranked as the Dolpa, and (%) in Kanchenjunga Conservation Area). most problematic carnivore, followed by wolves, and vice Respondents comprised herders (%), monks/lamas (%), versa in Kanchenjunga Conservation Area. In Humla, dep- teachers (%), business people (%), construction workers redation by wolves was reported to be at its highest during (%) and hoteliers (%). Respondents were – years of the summer. Respondents in Kanchenjunga Conservation age and comprised % females and % males. Survey Area reported the highest depredation rates in winter, fol- questions explored perceptions of trends in the wolf popu- lowed by spring/summer, whereas no seasonal pattern lation and depredation incidents, and spatial and temporal emerged in Dolpa (Fig. ). depredation hotspots, and respondents were asked to rank predators based on the magnitude of depredation problems Discussion they cause. The social life of Himalayan wolves is characterized by small Results packs (i.e. family groups; Plate ), similar to packs of Holarctic grey wolves, golden jackals Canis aureus and coyotes Canis The eight packs encountered in Nepal consisted, on average, latrans (Sillero-Zubiri et al., ). The Himalayan wolf of five individuals: an adult pair accompanied by a mean of packs observed were comparatively smaller than Holarctic . ± SD . pups of the current year (Table , Plate ). grey wolf packs, which commonly comprise – individuals According to our observations, Himalayan wolves in Nepal (Sillero-Zubiri et al., ). Factors potentially influencing give birth between mid April and mid May (n = ). The pack size may include prey abundance and size, wolf mor- mean distance between the home sites of four adjacent tality, and prompt dispersal of yearlings (Fuller, ; wolf packs in Dolpa was . ± SD . km (n = ). All Jędrzejewski et al., ). home sites were situated in patches of rolling alpine shrub- The home sites used by these Himalayan wolf packs were land dominated by Caragana, Lonicera, Astragalus, Salix probably chosen for their quality in respect to hiding cover, and Juniperus spp. within alpine grasslands and in proxim- structural diversity and water accessibility, similar to recorded ity to water (Table ). characteristics of grey wolf den sites (Trapp et al., ). Oryx, 2019, 53(4), 663–669 © 2017 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605317001077 Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 170.106.35.76, on 02 Oct 2021 at 07:17:28, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605317001077 The Himalayan wolf in Nepal 665 TABLE 1 Pack composition of eight Himalayan wolf Canis (lupus) himalayensis packs in three areas in Nepal: Dolpa (within and outside Shey Phoksundo National Park), Humla and Kanchenjunga Conservation Area (Fig. ), with type of evidence, and year recorded. Location Pack composition Type of evidence Year Dolpa district Shey Phoksundo National Park Komas 2 adults, 3 pups* Reported by local people & personal observation 2016 Bhijer 2 adults, 3 pups Personal observation 2016 Nisalgaon 2 adults, 2 pups*