Malayan Nature Journal 2018, 70(2), 149-155
A study on activity pattern of clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) in Gunung Basor and Stong Utara Forest Reserves, Kelantan, Malaysia MUHAMAD HAMIRUL SHAH AB RAZAK1,2, D. MARK RAYAN1, SHARIFF WAN MOHAMAD1, C. C. T. WONG1, F. L. CHING1, ELANGKUMARAN SAGTIA SIWAN1, AZLAN MOHAMED1, KAMARUL HAMBALI2,*, NAZAHATUL ANIS AMALUDIN2 and AWENG EH RAK2 Abstract: A study to investigate the activity pattern of clouded leopard was carried out in Gunung Basor and Stong Utara Forest Reserves, Kelantan, Malaysia, using camera traps, over a period of 6 months. All camera traps were set to operate 24 hours a day, and are mounted on trees that face suitable paths like ridges, old logging paths and forest paths. A total of 69 pairs of camera traps have been used for this study. From this study, 152 photographed images of clouded leopard have been captured in both study areas. The results showed that clouded leopard can be classified into cathemeral classes where they are active during the day and night. If compared to other studies, clouded leopard was classified into nocturnal and diurnal. However, more studies need to be carried out on this species to get more information to help the conservation organizations and also the Wildlife Department in preserving and conserving this species and its habitats. Key words: Camera trapping, activity pattern, clouded leopard, Gunung Basor Forest Reserve, Stong Utara Forest Reserve
INTRODUCTION Peninsular Malaysia has 72% of the wild cat diversity of tropical Asia, with seven species in five genera namely tiger, leopard, clouded leopard, the smaller leopard cat, flat-headed cat, marbled cat and the intermediate sized golden cat (Medway, 1983; Lim, 1999, 2002). Although these seven species are found throughout Peninsular Malaysia (Medway, 1983; Lim, 1999), only few studies have been conducted on them due to the difficulties to locate them and the lack of resources and expertise to study these animals. Information of these smaller cats was scattered, usually on specimens being found on road kills, in captivity (Hemmer, 1968; Yamada and Durrant, 1989), sightings reports and camera trappings (Lim and Abdul Rahman Omar, 1961; Davies, 1990; Saharudin and Azmi, 1995; Kawanishi et al., 1999; Sirka and Olson, 2000; Laidlaw, 2000; Saharudin, 2001; Ghose, 2002; Kawanishi and Sunquist, 2004; Azlan and Lading, 2006; Kawanishi and Sunquist, 2008). Most of the research was more focused on tigers (Ellagupillay, 1984; Khan, 1987; Topani, 1990; Jasmi, 1998; Kawanishi, 2002). The clouded leopard is listed as vulnerable by the IUCN and included in CITES Appendix I. The name of clouded leopard refers to it unique cloud-like fur pattern on its body (Nowell and Jackson, 1996). Some described the clouded leopard as strictly arboreal (Pocock, 1939; Wood, 1949) but the later findings noted that this species also can be found on the ground (Robinowitz el al., 1987). Their patchy distribution, low density, normally nocturnal and far-ranging behaviour (Davies and Payne, 1982; Santiapillai, 1986; Austin and Tewes, 1999; Grassman et al., 2005) made them very difficult to study and monitor. 1
WWF-Malaysia, 1 Jalan PJS 5/28A, Petaling Jaya Commercial Centre (PJCC), Petaling Jaya, 46150, Selangor, Malaysia. 2 Faculty of Earth Science, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan Jeli Campus, Locked Bag No. 100, 17600 Jeli, Kelantan, Malaysia. *Corresponding author:
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Clouded leopard is a medium-sized cat whose distribution extends from Nepal through mainland South-east Asia, including Malaysia (Srivastav and Nigam, 2009). A recent study by WWF-Malaysia has managed to obtain the first clouded leopard density estimates in Peninsular Malaysia where their study was conducted in the Belum-Temengor Forest Complex (Mohamad et al., 2015). This forest complex was beside Gunung Basor and Stong Utara Forest Reserves and was managed by different state forest departments. Nowadays, very little information exists regarding clouded leopard distribution, habits and population status in Peninsular Malaysia. Therefore, it makes it difficult to develop a conservation plan for the species. By using camera trapping, clouded leopard activity pattern was studied in Gunung Basor and Stong Utara Forest Reserves. With this method, it is useful to photograph wild animals especially in the condition of the study area with hard and rugged terrain, dense vegetation and for the animals that active during night (Treves et al., 2010). Camera trapping can be seen as a camera that triggered remotely and automatically take the images of the subject passing in front of the camera (Newey et al., 2015). Camera trapping are widely used to monitor wildlife population and their ecology (Sollmann et al., 2013). As applied in the wildlife survey, camera trapping had been used for this study to know the activity pattern of clouded leopard in Gunung Basor and Stong Utara Forest Reserves, Kelantan. This study represents as additional information on mainland clouded leopard and fresh information of clouded leopard activity pattern in the state of Kelantan. METHODOLOGY Study area The study was conducted in Gunung Basor Forest Reserve (GBFR) and Stong Utara Forest Reserve (SUFR), Kelantan (Figure 1). GBFR encompasses an area of 406.1 km2 while SUFR is 110.4 km2. Both of these forest reserves totally encompasses a total of 516.5 km2 have been selectively logged. During the study period, logging activities still continued. The study area was hilly and encompasses lowland to montane ericaceous forest, with its highest peak reaching up to 1,889 m. Camera traps A total of 69 pairs of custom-built camera-trap were used for the purpose of this study. Each selected locations has been placed two camera traps opposite each other. These camera traps are digital camera model Sony P41 which covered by waterproof Pelican cases. All camera traps were set to operate 24 hours a day, and were mounted on trees that facing suitable paths like ridge, old logging paths and forest paths. The camera traps were set roughly at knee-height (about 40 – 50 cm) above the trail and the average spacing between each location was 2.52 km, and ranged from 1.83-3.35 km. The camera traps were maintained throughout the study period. Photograph Analysis All the clouded leopard photographs taken by camera traps were compiled. Each individual clouded leopard was identified by comparing both flanks using the cloud pattern on its body and assigned an individual code. The individual identifications will then be cross-checked and confirmed by several WWF-Malaysia field biologists. Besides, all of the photographs were also sent to other experts to double check the identification.
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Figure 1. Gunung Basor and Stong Utara Forest Reserves, Kelantan (Source: WWF-Malaysia, 2013 151
Activity patterns Camera traps can be used to provide information on the activity patterns. Since the camera traps were operated continuously for 24 hours a day and every photograph was imprinted with the date and time, it is possible to ascertain the time captures of each clouded leopard. From these time captures, a crude profile of clouded leopard activity can be plotted. Activity level of the clouded leopard has been measured by the percentage of the total photo captured. Activity pattern was classified based on Kawanishi (2002) where a diurnal from 0700 hr to 1859 hr and nocturnal 1900 hr to 0659 hr. The definition of nocturnal activity is when the percentage of detections occur during night is more than 90%. While, if the detections during night is less than 10%, it falls into diurnal (van Schaik and Griffiths, 1996). RESULTS AND DISCUSSION A total 15,142 photographs was recorded which 14,000 detections were wildlife photograps which comprise 63 different wildlife species including avian and small to large mammals. Due to uncertainties of images, 56 photograps were excluded comprising 15 photographs of unidentifiable avian species. At least 35 species of mammals have been photographed during the study period where there are 5 species of felids, the Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris), clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa), leopard (Panthera pardus), leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) and marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata). From the whole photographs, 152 of them are clouded leopard which has been recorded for 9,525 trapping days in both study areas. From the photographs, about 65% of clouded leopard were photographed during night while 35% were photographed during daytime. To be classed into cathemeral, the percentage should be between 10% to 90% nocturnal observations (van Schaik and Griffiths, 1996). From the activity pattern profiles derived from the data, clouded leopard were classified into cathemeral class where it was active in both day and night time. Radar diagram in Figure 2 below shows the results of clouded leopard active hour. From the figure, active period for clouded leopard is almost at the same period in both of the study areas which between 2100 hour until 1200 hour. Activity pattern of clouded leopard in GBFR (n=77) were almost closed to nocturnal with 73% were detected at night while SUFR (n=23) about 39% of the photographs were taken during night time. Other studies speculated that clouded leopard will change its behaviour based on competition with larger competitors (Ridout and Linkie, 2009). Mainland clouded leopard activity pattern analysis from the Department of Wildlife and National Park (DWNP) in Temengor Forest Reserve shows that clouded leopard is partly nocturnal which is their most active hours range between 1600 hr and 2200 hr (Rufino et al., 2009-2010). This study was supported by Ross et al. (2013) who conducted a study in Sabah that also found the Sunda clouded leopard is strongly nocturnal. However, this is contrary to the findings by Azlan and Sharma (2006) which showed that mainland clouded leopards is mostly active during the day.
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Figure 2. Line chart and radar diagram of clouded leopard in GBFR and SUFR. CONCLUSION This study is an enhancement of information and provides important knowledge for a better understanding of this species due to the lack of a thorough study of this species in Peninsular Malaysia. Much researches are needed and the camera trapping effort need to be fully utilize and explored through research to get more critical information about this species for better conservation and recommendation works in the future. Acknowledgements: We would like to thank the Kelantan State Forestry Department and Department of Wildlife and National Park for the permission to doing surveys in Gunung Basor and Stong Utara Forest Reserves. Besides, thanks also to Eng Sue Ying for the support of Geographical Information System and to all field assistants. This research was supported by WWF-Malaysia and also Short Term Research Grant (SGJP) (R/SGJP/A08.00 /00386A/001/2018/000453) from Universiti Malaysia Kelantan and Minister of Higher Education, Malaysia. REFERENCES Austin, S. C. and Tewes, M. E. (1999). Ecology of the Clouded Leopard in Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. Cat News/IUCN SSC 31. Azlan, J. M. and Lading, E. (2006). Camera trapping and conservation in Lambir Hills National Park, Sarawak. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 54 : 469-475. Azlan, J. M. and Sharma, D. S. K. (2006). The diversity and activity patterns of wild felids in a secondary forest in Peninsular Malaysia. Oryx 40(1) : 1-6. Davies, R. G. (1990). Sighting of a clouded leopard (Neofelis nebulosa) in a troop of pigtail macaques (Macaca nemestrina) in Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. Natural History Bulletin of the Siam Society 28 : 95-96. Davies, G. and Payne, J. (1982). A faunal survey of Sabah. IUCN/WWF Project No 1692. WWF Malaysia. Ellagupillay, S. (1984). Territorial range of an adult tigress at Behrang Ulu Cattle Farm. The Journal of Wildlife and Parks 3: 63-67. Ghose, D. (2002). First sighting of Clouded Leopard Neofelis nebulosa from the Blue Mountain National Park, Mizoram, India. Current Science (Bangalore) 83 : 21-22 Grassman, L. I. Jr., Tewes, M. E., Silvy, N. J. and Kreetiyutanont, K. (2005). Ecology of three sympatric felids in a mixed evergreen forest in North-Central Thailand. Journal of Mammalogy 86(1) : 29-38. Hemmer, H. (1968). Studien zur Ethologie des Nebelpardes Neofelis nebulosa (Griffith 1821) und des Irbis Uncia uncia (Schreber 1775). Veröffentlichungen der Zoologischen Staatssammlung München 12 : 155-247. 153
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