Application of the scat detection dog in the conservation of the leopard cats in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Lee Choy Yuh, 李彩玉
• Other Authors: Mei-Hsiu Hwang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/03634358913276566221

碩士 === 國立屏東科技大學 === 野生動物保育研究所 === 103 === Geographic distribution and habitat use are critical information for effective wildlife conservation and management. Using scat detection dog in surveying for scats on endangered species can save expense of DNA analysis and be more effectively. This study objective to use a scat detection dog to find and distinguish scats of leopard cats (Prionailurus bengalensis chinensis) and domestic cats (Felis catus). Additionally, this study collected the presence locations in Miaoli County to establish the predicted distribution maps of leopard cats. The accuracy rate of the dog scat detection in indoor and outdoor was 86 % and 83 %, respectively. The detection rate in outdoor was 75 %. In 32 surveys, the scat detection dog found 18 scats, including 12 leopard cat scats after DNA identification. In the MaxEnt model, 128 presence locations of leopard cats collected in 2004-2013 were applied to establish the distribution prediction model of leopard cats, the AUC of training and test data were 0.917 and 0.874, respectively. The predicted distribution covered 296.56 km2 (15 % of the study area). Among the environmental factors, elevation, aspect, coverage of the forest and distance to the nearest road were the most important factors to explain the geographic distribution of leopard cats.