Les hommes ont oublié cette vérité. Mais tu ne dois pas l'oublier, dit le renard. Tu deviens responsable pour toujours de ce que tu as apprivoisé.
Le Petit Prince, chap. 21

Monday, 6 January 2014

Incursion of domestic carnivores around urban areas: Three camera-trapping studies

Marks, B. K., & Duncan, R. S. (2009). Use of forest edges by free-ranging cats and dogs in an urban forest fragment. Southeastern Naturalist8(3), 427-436.

Free-ranging Felis catus (Domestic Cat) and Canis familiaris (Domestic Dog) can greatly impact native prey populations, but little is known about their occurrence in urban forest fragments. In this study, we used camera traps to photograph (capture) cats, dogs, and native wildlife in a 409-ha urban forest in Birmingham, AL from Jan–Apr 2007. Habitat treatments included forest interior and forest edges by industrial lands, neighborhoods with higher house values, and neighborhoods with lower house values. We employed both conservative (n = 31) and liberal (n = 64) methods of tallying the number of individual dogs, cats, and native mammals captured. Dogs and cats combined comprised 19% (conservative) and 26% (liberal) of all photographic captures. Procyon lotor (Raccoon) were the most abundant of the 7 native species at 32% (conservative) and 53% (liberal) of all captures. Dogs were more abundant in neighborhood edges, and cats were more abundant in the forest interior. Cats and dogs combined were 75% (conservative) and 86% (liberal) of captures from the forest interior. Captures of native species were far more frequent in neighborhood edges (conservative = 86.9%, and liberal = 92.3%) than in other treatments. These findings demonstrate that exotic predators can be an important ecological presence in certain portions of urban forest fragments, and more extensive studies of their impact are needed.

Ordeñana, M.A, K. R. Crooks, E.E. Boydston, R.N. Fisher, L.M. Lyren, S. Siudyla, C.D. Haas, S. Harris, S.A. Hathaway, G.M. Turschak, A. K. Miles, & D.H. Van Vuren (2010) Effects of urbanization on carnivore species distribution and richness. Journal of Mammalogy, 91 (6): 1322-1331.

Urban development can have multiple effects on mammalian carnivore communities. We conducted a meta-analysis of 7,929 photographs from 217 localities in 11 camera-trap studies across coastal southern California to describe habitat use and determine the effects of urban proximity (distance to urban edge) and intensity (percentage of area urbanized) on carnivore occurrence and species richness in natural habitats close to the urban boundary. Coyotes (Canis latrans) and bobcats (Lynx rufus) were distributed widely across the region. Domestic dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis), raccoons (Procyon lotor), gray foxes (Urocyon cinereoargenteus), mountain lions (Puma concolor), and Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana) were detected less frequently, and long-tailed weasels (Mustela frenata), American badgers (Taxidea taxus), western spotted skunks (Spilogale gracilis), and domestic cats (Felis catus) were detected rarely. Habitat use generally reflected availability for most species. Coyote and raccoon occurrence increased with both proximity to and intensity of urbanization, whereas bobcat, gray fox, and mountain lion occurrence decreased with urban proximity and intensity. Domestic dogs and Virginia opossums exhibited positive and weak negative relationships, respectively, with urban intensity but were unaffected by urban proximity. Striped skunk occurrence increased with urban proximity but decreased with urban intensity. Native species richness was negatively associated with urban intensity but not urban proximity, probably because of the stronger negative response of individual species to urban intensity.

Fandos, G., Fernández-López, J., & Tellería, J. L. (2012). Incursion of domestic carnivores around urban areas: a test in central Spain. Mammalia, 76(2), 223-225.

Although domestic carnivores are frequently considered a threat to wildlife inside and around urban areas, little is known about the incursions of these animals from urban areas to the surrounding habitats. To explore this, we sampled carnivores in wooded areas surrounding four villages located in the mountains north of Madrid by using 40 camera-trapping stations. They were distributed at regular distances within a perpendicular transect distributed from 10 to 2000 m from the urban border. The results suggest that the incidence of domestic carnivores (cats and dogs) was constrained to <400 m from the urban border, and that the presence of domestic carnivores did not interfere with the distribution of wild carnivores (foxes, beech martens, badgers, genets, etc.), which show random distribution patterns around villages. This means that overpredation at the village edges could mainly be due to the effect of domestic animals and not to that of wild carnivores attracted to urban areas


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