Waltert, Matthias

[["dc.bibliographiccitation.artnumber","e0129221"],["dc.bibliographiccitation.issue","6"],["dc.bibliographiccitation.journal","PLoS ONE"],["dc.bibliographiccitation.volume","10"],["dc.contributor.author","Khorozyan, Igor"],["dc.contributor.author","Soofi, Mahmood"],["dc.contributor.author","Hamidi, Amirhossein Khaleghi"],["dc.contributor.author","Ghoddousi, Arash"],["dc.contributor.author","Waltert, Matthias"],["dc.date.accessioned","2018-11-07T09:55:40Z"],["dc.date.available","2018-11-07T09:55:40Z"],["dc.date.issued","2015"],["dc.description.abstract","Human-carnivore conflicts challenge biodiversity conservation and local livelihoods, but the role of diseases of domestic animals in their predation by carnivores is poorly understood. We conducted a human-leopard (Panthera pardus) conflict study throughout all 34 villages around Golestan National Park, Iran in order to find the most important conflict determinants and to use them in predicting the probabilities of conflict and killing of cattle, sheep and goats, and dogs. We found that the more villagers were dissatisfied with veterinary services, the more likely they were to lose livestock and dogs to leopard predation. Dissatisfaction occurred when vaccination crews failed to visit villages at all or, in most cases, arrived too late to prevent diseases from spreading. We suggest that increased morbidity of livestock makes them particularly vulnerable to leopard attacks. Moreover, conflicts and dog killing were higher in villages located closer to the boundaries of the protected area than in distant villages. Therefore, we appeal for improved enforcement and coordination of veterinary services in our study area, and propose several priority research topics such as veterinarian studies, role of wild prey in diseases of domestic animals, and further analysis of potential conflict predictors."],["dc.description.sponsorship","Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 2015"],["dc.identifier.doi","10.1371/journal.pone.0129221"],["dc.identifier.isi","000358147500021"],["dc.identifier.pmid","26114626"],["dc.identifier.purl","https://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gs-1/11950"],["dc.identifier.uri","https://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gro-2/36803"],["dc.notes.intern","Merged from goescholar"],["dc.notes.status","zu prüfen"],["dc.notes.submitter","Najko"],["dc.publisher","Public Library Science"],["dc.relation.issn","1932-6203"],["dc.rights","CC BY 4.0"],["dc.rights.uri","https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"],["dc.title","Dissatisfaction with Veterinary Services Is Associated with Leopard (Panthera pardus) Predation on Domestic Animals"],["dc.type","journal_article"],["dc.type.internalPublication","yes"],["dc.type.peerReviewed","yes"],["dc.type.status","published"],["dc.type.version","published_version"],["dspace.entity.type","Publication"]]

[["dc.bibliographiccitation.artnumber","UNSP wlb.00230"],["dc.bibliographiccitation.journal","Wildlife Biology"],["dc.contributor.author","Soofi, Mahmood"],["dc.contributor.author","Ghoddousi, Arash"],["dc.contributor.author","Hamidi, Amirhossein Khaleghi"],["dc.contributor.author","Ghasemi, Benjamin"],["dc.contributor.author","Egli, Lukas"],["dc.contributor.author","Voinopol-Sassu, Ana-Johanna"],["dc.contributor.author","Kiabi, B. H."],["dc.contributor.author","Balkenhol, Niko"],["dc.contributor.author","Khorozyan, Igor"],["dc.contributor.author","Waltert, Matthias"],["dc.date.accessioned","2018-11-07T10:28:36Z"],["dc.date.available","2018-11-07T10:28:36Z"],["dc.date.issued","2017"],["dc.description.abstract","The elusive Caspian red deer Cervus elaphus maral lives at low densities in rugged forest habitats of the Caucasus and the south Caspian region, and its declining population requires urgent attention. We here address the precision and reliability of dung counts (fecal standing crop approach FSC) and camera trapping (random encounter model REM) for estimating its population size. We surveyed 36 km of strip transects arranged in systematic random design and applied 1585 camera trap nights of effort in the mountainous forest habitats of Golestan National Park, Iran. We also conducted a dung decay analysis of 80 samples. Dung decay rates were not habitat-specific and the mean time to decay was 141.8 +/- 15.1 days, i.e. only ca 52% of the most reliable estimate available for red deer dung. Estimated deer population size and density from dung counts was lower (194 +/- 46 individuals, 0.46 +/- 0.11 individuals km(-2), 2012-2013) than from REM (257 +/- 84 individuals, 0.61 +/- 0.20 individuals km(-2), 2011), but this difference was insignificant. Both these estimates confirm a sharp decline of the population from an estimated 2096 animals in the 1970s. Density estimates reached a stable level and were most precise at a sampling effort of 15 transects (FSC) and 1345 camera trap-days (REM). Our results confirm that FSC and REM can both be reliable for assessing populations of Cervidae."],["dc.description.sponsorship","Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 2017"],["dc.identifier.doi","10.2981/wlb.00230"],["dc.identifier.isi","000402078100002"],["dc.identifier.purl","https://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gs-1/14267"],["dc.identifier.uri","https://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gro-2/43458"],["dc.notes.intern","Merged from goescholar"],["dc.notes.status","zu prüfen"],["dc.notes.submitter","PUB_WoS_Import"],["dc.relation.issn","1903-220X"],["dc.relation.issn","0909-6396"],["dc.relation.orgunit","Abteilung Wildtierwissenschaften"],["dc.rights","CC BY-NC 4.0"],["dc.rights.uri","https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0"],["dc.title","Precision and reliability of indirect population assessments for the Caspian red deer Cervus elaphus maral"],["dc.type","journal_article"],["dc.type.internalPublication","yes"],["dc.type.peerReviewed","yes"],["dc.type.subtype","original_ja"],["dc.type.version","published_version"],["dspace.entity.type","Publication"]]

[["dc.bibliographiccitation.artnumber","e0153439"],["dc.bibliographiccitation.issue","4"],["dc.bibliographiccitation.journal","PLoS ONE"],["dc.bibliographiccitation.volume","11"],["dc.contributor.author","Ghoddousi, Arash"],["dc.contributor.author","Soofi, Mahmood"],["dc.contributor.author","Hamidi, Amirhossein Khaleghi"],["dc.contributor.author","Lumetsberger, Tanja"],["dc.contributor.author","Egli, Lukas"],["dc.contributor.author","Khorozyan, Igor"],["dc.contributor.author","Kiabi, B. H."],["dc.contributor.author","Waltert, Matthias"],["dc.date.accessioned","2018-11-07T10:15:33Z"],["dc.date.available","2018-11-07T10:15:33Z"],["dc.date.issued","2016"],["dc.description.abstract","Livestock is represented in big cat diets throughout the world. Husbandry approaches aim to reduce depredation, which may influence patterns of prey choice, but whether felids have a preference for livestock or not often remains unclear as most studies ignore livestock availability. We assessed prey choice of the endangered Persian leopard (Panthera pardus saxicolor) in Golestan National Park, Iran, where conflict over livestock depredation occurs. We analyzed leopard diet (77 scats) and assessed wild and domestic prey abundance by line transect sampling (186 km), camera-trapping (2777 camera days), double-observer point-counts (64 scans) and questionnaire surveys (136 respondents). Based on interviews with 18 shepherds, we estimated monthly grazing time outside six villages with 96 conflict cases to obtain a small livestock (domestic sheep and goat) availability coefficient. Using this coefficient, which ranged between 0.40 and 0.63 for different villages, we estimated the numbers of sheep and goats available to leopard depredation. Leopard diet consisted mainly of wild boar (Sus scrofa) (50.2% biomass consumed), but bezoar goat (Capra aegagrus) was the most preferred prey species (I-j = 0.73), whereas sheep and goats were avoided (Ij = -0.54). When absolute sheep and goat numbers (similar to 11250) were used instead of the corrected ones (similar to 6392), avoidance of small livestock appeared to be even stronger (Ij = -0.71). We suggest that future assessments of livestock choice by felids should incorporate such case-specific corrections for spatiotemporal patterns of availability, which may vary with husbandry methods. Such an approach increases our understanding of human-felid conflict dynamics and the role of livestock in felid diets."],["dc.description.sponsorship","Open-Access Publikationsfonds 2016"],["dc.identifier.doi","10.1371/journal.pone.0153439"],["dc.identifier.isi","000373891000053"],["dc.identifier.pmid","27064680"],["dc.identifier.purl","https://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gs-1/13203"],["dc.identifier.uri","https://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gro-2/40834"],["dc.notes.intern","Merged from goescholar"],["dc.notes.status","zu prüfen"],["dc.notes.submitter","Najko"],["dc.publisher","Public Library Science"],["dc.relation.issn","1932-6203"],["dc.rights","CC BY 4.0"],["dc.rights.uri","https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"],["dc.title","Assessing the Role of Livestock in Big Cat Prey Choice Using Spatiotemporal Availability Patterns"],["dc.type","journal_article"],["dc.type.internalPublication","yes"],["dc.type.peerReviewed","yes"],["dc.type.status","published"],["dc.type.version","published_version"],["dspace.entity.type","Publication"]]

[["dc.bibliographiccitation.artnumber","e3049"],["dc.bibliographiccitation.journal","PeerJ"],["dc.bibliographiccitation.volume","5"],["dc.contributor.author","Khorozyan, Igor"],["dc.contributor.author","Soofi, Mahmood"],["dc.contributor.author","Soufi, Mobin"],["dc.contributor.author","Hamidi, Amirhossein Khaleghi"],["dc.contributor.author","Ghoddousi, Arash"],["dc.contributor.author","Waltert, Matthias"],["dc.date.accessioned","2018-11-07T10:27:13Z"],["dc.date.available","2018-11-07T10:27:13Z"],["dc.date.issued","2017"],["dc.description.abstract","Human-carnivore conflicts over livestock depredation are increasingly common, yet little is understood about the role of husbandry in conflict mitigation. As shepherds and guarding dogs are most commonly used to curb carnivore attacks on grazing livestock, evaluation and improvement of these practices becomes an important task. We addressed this issue by studying individual leopard (Pantherapardus) attacks on sheep and goats in 34 villages near Golestan National Park, Iran. We obtained and analyzed data on 39 attacks, which included a total loss of 31 sheep and 36 goats in 17 villages. We applied non-parametric testing, Poisson Generalized Linear Modelling (GLM) and model selection to assess how numbers of sheep and goats killed per attack are associated with the presence and absence of shepherds and dogs during attacks, depredation in previous years, villages, seasons, ethnic groups, numbers of sheep and goats kept in villages, and distances from villages to the nearest protected areas. We found that 95.5% of losses were inflicted in forests when sheep and goats were accompanied by shepherds (92.5% of losses) and dogs (77.6%). Leopards tended to kill more sheep and goats per attack (surplus killing) when dogs were absent in villages distant from protected areas, but still inflicted most losses when dogs were present, mainly in villages near protected areas. No other variables affected numbers of sheep and goats killed per attack. These results indicate that local husbandry practices are ineffectual and the mere presence of shepherds and guarding dogs is not enough to secure protection. Shepherds witnessed leopard attacks, but could not deter them while dogs did not exhibit guarding behavior and were sometimes killed by leopards. In an attempt to make practical, low-cost and socially acceptable improvements in local husbandry, we suggest that dogs are raised to create a strong social bond with livestock, shepherds use only best available dogs, small flocks are aggregated into larger ones and available shepherds herd these larger flocks together. Use of deterrents and avoidance of areas close to Golestan and in central, core areas of neighboring protected areas also essential to keep losses down."],["dc.description.sponsorship","Open-Access-Publikationsfonds 2017"],["dc.identifier.doi","10.7717/peerj.3049"],["dc.identifier.isi","000396901500008"],["dc.identifier.pmid","28243544"],["dc.identifier.purl","https://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gs-1/14370"],["dc.identifier.uri","https://resolver.sub.uni-goettingen.de/purl?gro-2/43205"],["dc.notes.intern","Merged from goescholar"],["dc.notes.status","zu prüfen"],["dc.notes.submitter","PUB_WoS_Import"],["dc.publisher","Peerj Inc"],["dc.relation.issn","2167-8359"],["dc.rights","CC BY 4.0"],["dc.rights.uri","https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"],["dc.title","Effects of shepherds and dogs on livestock depredation by leopards (Panthera pardus) in north-eastern Iran"],["dc.type","journal_article"],["dc.type.internalPublication","yes"],["dc.type.peerReviewed","yes"],["dc.type.status","published"],["dc.type.version","published_version"],["dspace.entity.type","Publication"]]