WORKING PAPER NO. 24 DECEMBER 2005 SETTING CONSERVATION AND RESEARCH PRIORITIES FOR LARGER AFRICAN CARNIVORES Justina C. Ray, Luke Hunter, and Joanna Zigouris The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) is dedicated to saving wildlife and wildlands, to assure a future for threatened species like elephants, tigers, sharks, macaws, or lynx. That mission is achieved through a conservation program that protects some 50 living landscapes around the world, manages more than 590 field projects in 53 countries, and supports the nations largest system of living institutions—the Bronx Zoo, the New York Aquarium, and the Wildlife Centers in Central Park, Queens and Prospect Park. We are developing and maintaining pioneering environmental education programs that reach more than three million people in the New York metropolitan area as well as in all 50 United States and on six continents. We are working to make future generations inheritors, not just survivors. The WCS Working Paper Series represents preliminary results of basic and applied field work supported by the Wildlife Conservation Society. The purpose of WCS Working Papers is to distribute project reports, benchmark data sets of historical significance, and other timely technical material in its entirety, and with as little delay as possible. For a list of WCS Working Papers, please see the end of this publication. WORKING PAPER NO. 24 DECEMBER 2005 SETTING CONSERVATION AND RESEARCH PRIORITIES FOR LARGER AFRICAN CARNIVORES Justina C. Ray, Luke Hunter, and Joanna Zigouris This working paper was prepared for the Wildlife Conservation Society by Justina C. Ray, Luke Hunter, and Joanna Zigouris. WCS Working Papers ISSN 1530-4426 Copies of WCS Working Papers are available for download from http://www.wcs.org/science or by mailing a request to: Wildlife Conservation Society International Conservation 2300 Southern Boulevard Bronx, NY 10460-1099 USA Suggested citation: Ray, Justina C., Luke Hunter, and Joanna Zigouris. 2005 Setting Conservation and Research Priorities for Larger African Carnivores. WCS Working Paper No. 24. Wildlife Conservation Society, New York. Front cover photographs: © P. Henschel (African Golden Cat) © S. Williams (Ethiopian wolf) © L. Hunter/WCS Copyright: The contents of this paper are solely the property of the authors, and cannot be reproduced without the permission of the authors. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project has been a two and a half-year project in the making, commenced in 2002 under the collaborative umbrella of the Global Carnivore and Africa Pro- grams of the Wildlife Conservation Society. We are thankful to Alan Rabinowitz, Howard Quigley, and Peter Howard for providing the support and enthusiasm necessary to kickstart this effort. They, together with Kathy Conforti, Monica Wrobel, and Graeme Patterson, provided key input in the design phases. James Deutsch joined in later, and has been a steady source of encouragement. Ear- lier drafts of the manuscript benefited greatly from the constructive comments brought forward by Pete Coppollilo, Josh Ginsberg, Graeme Patterson, Alan Rabinowitz, Kent Redford, Adrian Treves, Rosie Woodroffe, and Monica Wrobel. To all we are grateful for giving their valuable time. Gillian Woolmer provided important GIS support and Tim Ellis conducted several of the GIS analyses that appear here. Mary Van Sleeuwen did critical research to get this project off the ground and provided invaluable support during the first year of this project; Nicole Williams aided in the preparation of the manuscript. We are also thankful to all those listed in Appendix 4 for giving their time and energy in refining species distribution maps. We are very grateful to Philipp Henschel and Stuart Williams for the use of their photographs on the cover. We are indebted to Green Living Communications for their rapid and diligent work in the wonder- ful design and production of this report. Finally, we extend our profound thanks to our mentor George Schaller for his thoughtful remarks in the foreword. setting conservation and research priorities for larger african carnivores v vi wildlife conservation society TABLE OF CONTENTS Foreword, By George B. Schaller . 1 Executive Summary . 3 Part I: Introduction . 9 Previous priority-setting . 11 The species focus . 12 The geographic focus . 12 Part II: Setting Species Priorities . 17 Introduction . 18 Methods . 18 Description of the species prioritization system . 18 Description of scoring categories and variables . 19 Results . 27 Overall . 27 Vulnerability . 32 Knowledge . 36 Threats . 42 Discussion . 44 Caveats and limitations of this exercise . 45 Species groupings . 46 Part III: Setting Geographic Priorities . 49 Introduction . 50 Methods . 50 Distribution maps . 50 Analyses . 51 Results . 51 Discussion . 63 Part IV: Species Conservation Profiles . 65 Introduction . 66 Felidae . 66 Lion (Panthera leo) . 66 Cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus) . 72 Leopard (Panthera pardus) . 77 setting conservation and research priorities for larger african carnivores vii African golden cat (Profelis aurata) . 81 Serval (Leptailurus serval) . 84 Caracal (Caracal caracal) . 87 Canidae . 90 Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis) . 90 African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) . 94 Black-backed jackal (Canis mesomelas) . 98 Side-striped jackal (Canis adustus) . 100 Golden jackal (Canis aureus) . 103 Hyaenidae . 105 Aardwolf (Proteles cristatus) . 105 Brown hyena (Hyaena brunnea) . 108 Striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena) . 111 Spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta) . 113 Mustelidae and Viverridae . 118 Spotted necked otter (Lutra maculicollis) . 118 Cape clawless otter (Aonyx capensis) . 120 Congo clawless otter (Aonyx congicus) . 124 Honey badger (Mellivora capensis) . 125 African civet (Civettictis civetta) . 128 Part V: Conclusions and Recommendations . 132 Literature Cited . 139 APPENDIX 1: Scoring details: Vulnerability category . 168 APPENDIX 2: Scoring details: Knowledge category . 180 APPENDIX 3: Scoring details: Threat category . 186 APPENDIX 4: References for African carnivore distribution maps . 191 APPENDIX 5: Biome classification . 194 APPENDIX 6. African carnivore species loss . 196 List of Working Papers . 201 LIST OF FIGURES Fig. 1.1 Georegion units of analysis . 14 Fig. 1.2 Biome units of analysis . 15 Fig. 1.3 Country units of analysis . 16 Fig. 2.1 Relationships among category scores for 20 carnivore species . 28 Fig. 2.2 Comparison of mean category scores by carnivore family and body size . 30 Fig. 2.3 Principal components analysis of species and vulnerability variables . 33 Fig. 2.4 Principal components analysis of species and fecundity variables . 33 Fig. 2.5 Mean score comparisons of vulnerability variables between carnivore families and body sizes . 35 Fig. 2.6 Principal components analysis of knowledge scores . 37 viii wildlife conservation society setting conservation and research priorities for larger african carnivores ix Fig. 2.7 Mean score comparisons of knowledge variables between carnivore families body sizes . 38 Fig. 2.8 A. Piechart depicting proportion of Web of Science papers (n=1714) on each of 20 carnivore species; B. Distribution of paper subjects into conservation/management, ecology, and other . 40 Fig. 2.9 Distribution of carnivore studies in Africa . 41 Fig. 2.10 Principal components analysis of threats scores . 43 Fig. 2.11 Number of species scoring A. more than 12 and B. more than 0 for each of 10 threats analyzed . 44 Fig. 3.1 Frequency distribution of proportional area from which large carnivore species (maximum 17) have been lost in Africa . 53 Fig. 3.2 Proportion of Africa in which 0-6 species occur for large carnivores (> 12 kg), Felids, Canids, and Hyenids . 54 Fig. 3.3 Number of sympatric carnivore species (maximum 17) occurring historically and currently, with percent species loss in Africa since 100-150 years ago . 55 Fig. 3.4 Number of sympatric large carnivore species (>12 kg; 7 species) occurring historically and currently, with percent species loss in Africa since 100-150 years ago . ..