Bauer, Hans

Chapron, Guillaume

Dloniak, Stephanie M.

Funston, Paul

Henschel, Philipp

Hunter, Luke T. B.

MacDonald, D W

Nowell, Kristin

Packer, Craig

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

PubMed

Hans Bauer

Guillaume Chapron

Kristin Nowell

Philipp Henschel

Paul Funston

Luke T. B. Hunter

David W. Macdonald

Stephanie M. Dloniak

Craig Packer

Crossref

Reply to Riggio et al.: Ongoing lion declines across most of Africa warrant urgent action

Epsilon Open Archive

LETTERREPLY TO RIGGIO ET AL.:Ongoing lion declines acrossmost of Africa warranturgent actionHans Bauera,1, Guillaume Chapronb, Kristin Nowellc, Philipp Henscheld, Paul Funstond, Luke T. B. Hunterd,David W. Macdonalda, Stephanie M. Dloniake, and Craig Packera,fIn dismissing the conclusions of our paper, “Lion (Pantheraleo) populations are declining rapidly across Africa, exceptin intensively managed areas,” Riggio et al. (1) misrepre-sent our treatment of specific survey sites and raise erro-neous objections to our overall statistical approach.They question our data from two sites in East Africa:Masai Mara and Katavi. However, our Masai Maraanalysis was based on the best available data for thereserve as a whole: A 12-mo study in 1991–1992 andDloniak’s 2005 survey, cited by Packer et al. (2), thatreplicated the earlier methods and indicated a 40% de-cline in 14 years. Kiffner et al.’s 2005 survey in Katavi (3)responded to conservation concerns over declining eco-system health (4) and reported a lion density of only 15%of estimated carrying capacity (168 lions compared withan expected 1,100) (2). Our paper acknowledges theimprecision inherent in the Katavi time series of groundsurveys, which were recently used to report a significantdecline in lion numbers from 1995 to 2010 (5). OurBayesian analysis fully considers uncertainty resultingfrom observation and process errors, and our conclu-sions do not depend on the Katavi time series: ExcludingKatavi only reduces the probability of a one-half declinein three lion generations in East Africa from 37% to 32%.They query our classifying of two areas as fencedwhere fencing encompassed only part of the perim-eter. Our title emphasizes the conservation success of“intensively managed areas,” and Kruger is one of themost heavily managed reserves in Africa, whereasKgalagadi is fenced near areas of human habitation inthe otherwise unoccupied Kalahari. Besides their greaterinvestments in wildlifemanagement, low humandensitiesgive countries in southern Africa a unique advantage inconserving their wildlife (2), and herbivore populationsare also declining at a far greater rate in West, Central,and East Africa than in southern Africa (6).Our regional population analyses include all reportedtime series data for both increasing and decliningpopulations; we calculated the projected growth rateλT of T years (7), but these metrics were not intendedto provide a Bayesian forecast of population sizes (8).Weighting these metrics by population size wouldintroduce a serious bias because sites that had pre-viously suffered the largest declines would contributerelatively little to aggregated projected growth rates.Our assessment is based on the widely accepted cri-teria of the Red List and is entirely consistent with similartrends described for specific sites and for Africa as a whole(e.g., references 1, 4, 5, 23, 31, 32, and 38 of ref. 9). Manyof these references were coauthored by the authors ofRiggio et al. (1), and their arguments do not undermineour conclusions. Our conclusions call for urgent action;lion conservation will require unstinting efforts by stake-holders at local, national, and international levels (9).1 Riggio J, et al. (2016) Lion populations may be declining in Africa but not as Bauer et al. suggest. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 113:E107–E108.2 Packer C, et al. (2013) Conserving large carnivores: Dollars and fence. Ecol Lett 16(5):635–641.3 Kiffner C, Meyer B, Mühlenberg M, Waltert M (2009) Plenty of prey, few predators: What limits lions Panthera leo in Katavi NationalPark, western Tanzania? Oryx 43(1):52–59.4 Caro T, Kerley GIH (2008) Decline of large mammals in the Katavi-Rukwa ecosystem of western Tanzania. Afr Zool 43(1):99–116.5 Caro T (2011) On the merits and feasibility of wildlife monitoring for conservation: A case study from Katavi National Park, Tanzania.Afr J Ecol 49:320–331.6 Craigie ID, et al. (2010) Large mammal population declines in Africa’s protected areas. Biol Conserv 143(9):2221–2228.7 Caswell H (2011) Matrix Population Models (Sinauer, Sunderland, MA).8 Hobbs NT, Hooten MB (2015) Bayesian Models: A Statistical Primer for Ecologists (Princeton Univ Press, Princeton).9 Bauer H, et al. (2015) Lion (Panthera leo) populations are declining rapidly across Africa, except in intensively managed areas. Proc NatlAcad Sci USA 112(48):14894–14899.LETTERaWildlife Conservation Research Unit, Zoology, University of Oxford Recanati-Kaplan Centre, Tubney OX13 5QL, United Kingdom; bGrimsöWildlife Research Station, Department of Ecology, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 73091 Riddarhyttan, Sweden; cWorld ConservationUnion, Cat Action Treasury, Cape Neddick, ME 03902; dPanthera, New York, NY 10018; eDepartment of Integrative Biology, Michigan StateUniversity, East Lansing, MI 48824; and fDepartment of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, University of Minnesota, St. Paul, MN 55408Author contributions: H.B., G.C., K.N., P.H., P.F., L.T.B.H., D.W.M., S.M.D., and C.P. wrote the paper.The authors declare no conflict of interest.1To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: hans.bauer@zoo.ox.ac.uk.www.pnas.org/cgi/doi/10.1073/pnas.1522741113 PNAS | January 12, 2016 | vol. 113 | no. 2 | E109

http://pub.epsilon.slu.se/13545/21/bauer_h_et_al_161130.pdf

Reply to Riggio et al.: Ongoing lion declines across most of Africa warrant urgent action

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

Crossref

Epsilon Open Archive