Snares Distribution Model Analysis In Key Habitat Of Amur Tiger And Leopard

In China, the wild Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) and far eastern leopards(Panthera pardus orientalis) are on the brink of extinction. According to WWF’sungulates winter survey in2010-2011, the Amur tiger’s main prey is obviouslydeficient, and the snares meeting rate of1.6/10km also shows that poaching hasbecome the dominant factor preventing the recovery of tiger and leopard’s prey base.Wangqing forestry Bureau of Jilin province is one of the important key habitats forwild tigers and leopards, and this area is an important dispersal corridor of Amurtigers from Russia to China inland. It is representative for the protection of wild tigersand leopards in China. We collected the snare distribution information through a fieldsurvey of nearly three years in the study area, and estimate the relationship betweensnare distribution and various environmental factors such as wildlife distribution anddensity, forest type and structure, terrain, physiognomy, villages and roads via theresource selection function (RSF). Our results show that snare distribution is relatedto the elevation, distance to road, aspect, average stand age and vegetation coverage.The probability of finding a snare is higher in the area with lower altitude, shorterdistance to road, south slope, older stand and lower vegetation coverage. Thisresearch suggests that the related government department should put more patrolefforts at low altitude, in south slope aspect, near roads, in old stand with lowcoverage in the future and strengthen law enforcement at the same time. It may reducethe malignant events such as poaching by snares.