Conservation of the red panda (Ailurus fulgens) in Nepal: predicting red panda distribution, habitat use and assessing people's attitudes towards red panda conservation

• Main Authors: Hari Prasad Sharma, 夏翰立
• Other Authors: Lee, Pei-Jen
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/94693x

博士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 生命科學系 === 106 === The red panda Ailurus fulgens is a small-sized (3.3-6.2 kg), largely nocturnal and arboreal species. It inhabits forests with dense understory bamboo. The red panda has a narrow geographic distribution, found only in the mountain regions of Myanmar, China, Bhutan, India and Nepal. Currently, the red panda is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, and is included in both CITES Appendix I and Schedule I of the Protected Wildlife Species in Nepal's National Park and Wildlife Conservation Act of 1973. In this PhD thesis, I investigated three major issues related to red panda conservation in Nepal: people's attitudes towards red panda conservation, red panda habitat selection at a local scale and red panda potential distribution across Nepal. The ultimate goal of this study is to provide useful scientific information for red panda conservation planning in Nepal and the Himalayas. The thesis is divided into four chapters. The first chapter focuses on peoples' knowledge and attitudes towards red panda conservation. Specifically, I aim to provide empirical data on people's attitudes towards red panda conservation through interviewing local people. The results indicated that more than 90 percent of the interviewees had positive attitudes towards red panda conservation, with people living away from protected areas showing more positive attitudes than those people living in or near protected areas. I found that the awareness of the legal protection of red pandas, most likely assimilated with the help of non-government organizations, could play a key role in determining people's attitudes. Therefore, I recommend awareness programmes as effective tools to protect red pandas in Nepal. Regardless of the people's attitudes, local villagers do need to rely on resource-collecting and livestock-grazing to sustain their livelihoods. It is important to understand red panda habitat use at local spatial scales in order to manage human activities in red panda habitats. Therefore, the second chapter focuses on the habitat characteristics preferred by red pandas. Based on direct observations and faecal signs, I found that bamboos and trees are critical habitat requirements for red pandas during feeding and resting. Shrub and fallen logs are also important habitat characteristics likely because they provide red pandas easy access to bamboos and trees. Such information can be disseminated to the local people, who are collecting resources from red panda habitats. At a larger spatial scale, red panda habitats are prone to fragmentation due to their narrow niche. To ensure their long-term persistence, a landscape approach is required. Therefore, the third chapter focuses on building biologically informed niche models for predicting red panda distribution. Among the five models evaluated, the climate-forest model and climate-water-forest model generally performed better than the climate model, climate-water model and water-forest model. The climate-water-forest model generated unique prediction in the far-western region that may contain suitable red panda habitats. Although red pandas are not known to occur in this region, it is likely due to the limited efforts in field surveys rather than habitat suitability. In the western region, the predicted suitable areas fall outside the protected areas. The current state of knowledge on red pandas stated that little information is available on population, and habitat suitability map of red pandas. I recommend the use of genetic tools for assessing population status such as demographic composition. In addition, I suggest to developing accurate map of red pandas' current and available habitats to design management plan. It can be studied based on field studies of radio-telemetry on red pandas, which also help us to extending protected areas or utilizing community forests to connect suitable red panda habitats or provide more habitats, particularly in the western region. Other than ecological researches on red pandas, it is important to motivate people for behavioural changes, therefore I suggest Nepal Government and non-government organizations to focus their works on motivating people for behavioural changes by providing economic incentives, conducting more awareness programmes, and regular monitoring, updating and implementing legal protections practices across the countries.