Introduction
Common Leopard (Panthera pardus, called ‘leopard’ hereafter) is a widely distributed large carnivore adapted to a multitude of habitats, and tolerant to live in close proximity with humans (Myers, 1986; Nowell & Jackson 1996; Sunquist & Sunquist 2002; Athreya et al., 2016; Hunter et al., 2013). Despite their high adaptability, they require a large area for survival, thus, threatened by landscape fragmentation, prey depletion, poaching, conflict with humans and trophy hunting (Karanth, 1999; Cardillo et al., 2005; Kissui, 2008; Walston et al., 2010; Athreya et al., 2011; Raza et al., 2012; Strampelli, 2015; Jacobson et al., 2016). The leopard is now confined to 25–37% of its historical range (Cardillo et al., 2005; Jacobson et al., 2016) and listed as ‘Vulnerable’ in IUCN redlist (IUCN, 2020). Globally, only 17% of the leopard habitat lies inside the protected areas (PAs) (Jacobson et al., 2016). Intact PAs play a significant role for many large carnivores but for leopards, conservation cannot be ensured only in the PAs (Woodroffe & Ginsberg, 1998; Balme et al., 2010; Swanepoel et al., 2013; Strampelli, 2015).
The leopard habitat outside protected areas is rapidly declining and within PAs they face exploitative and interference competition with the socially dominant large carnivores such as tigers (Panthera tigris ) and lions (Panthera leo ) in most of their distribution range (Seidensticker, 1976; McDougal, 1988; Seidensticker et al., 1990; Miquelle et al., 2005; Barber‐Meyer et al., 2013; Miller et al., 2018). Among the mammalian carnivores, the less efficient competitors avoid the specialized competitors through spatial segregation by establishing the home range outside of the specialized competitors (Case & Gilpin, 1974; Major & Sherburne, 1987; Theberge & Wedeles, 1989; Robinson & Terborgh, 1995; Thornton et al., 2004; Atwood & Gese, 2010; Grassel et al., 2015).
In Southern lowlands and Himalayan foothills of Nepal, the leopards co-exist with tigers in the National Parks and Buffer Zone areas. The tiger populations in Nepal has almost doubled since 2010 through tiger focused conservation activities in and around the tiger bearing PAs (Thapa et al., 2017; DNPWC & DFSC, 2018). Thus, the increasing number of tigers may have pushed leopards to marginal habitats with some resource overlapping (Kafley et al., 2019; Lamichhane et al., 2019a). A large part of the Chure range falls outside the PAs. The forested areas of the Chure range adjoining the PAs provide habitat for dispersing or pushed out wildlife population including the leopards (Fig 1). Tigers are confined to protected areas and connected forest patches, and a large part of Chure is unoccupied by them. Thus, the Chure forest provides an opportunity for leopards to occupy a large area as apex predator. (DNPWC & DFSC, 2018). A recent study has highlighted its importance as key wildlife habitat (Thapa & Kelley 2017).
Although, Chure range has a potential of being key wildlife habitat for leopards and other associated wildlife, with increasing human pressure, the fragile Chure range has high deforestation rate (FRA/DFRS, 2014) which may limit the abundance and distribution of wildlife (GoN-RCTM, 2017). In addition, there is no comprehensive study on the status and distribution of wildlife in the Chure range. We carried out this study as a part of faunal diversity assessment in Chure range (~19,000km2) to understand the distribution and occupancy of leopards. This study provides information on leopard occupancy and associated covariates in Chure range of Nepal with far reaching implications for the conservation of leopards in the human dominated landscapes of Nepal and elsewhere.