Habitat Suitability Analysis of Himalayan Musk Deer ( Moschus leucogaster ) in Part of Western Himalaya, India
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Habitat Suitability Analysis of Himalayan Musk Deer (Moschus leucogaster) in Part of Western Himalaya, India Subrata Nandy1
•
M. Neethu Lakshmi2 • S. P. S. Kushwaha1
Received: 15 November 2019 / Accepted: 10 September 2020 / Published online: 24 September 2020 Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2020
Abstract Himalayan musk deer (Moschus leucogaster) is considered endangered by International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and is under Schedule-I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, because of its illicit hunting for musk as well as habitat loss. The present study aims to study the summer range habitat suitability of this important Himalayan ungulate in Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary (KWS) of Western Himalaya, India. The study integrated ground presence point locations of the species with satellite data-derived variables in a binomial multiple logistic regression (BMLR) model to analyse its suitability status in KWS. Moist temperate forest (323.38 km2) was found to be the dominant vegetation type, followed by sub-alpine forest (128.24 km2) and alpine pasture (119.51 km2) in KWS. It was found that 7.39% (72.04 km2) of the study area is highly suitable, followed by 14.73% (143.68 km2), 13.43% (131.02 km2) and 64.44% (628.46 km2) area as suitable, moderately suitable and least suitable, respectively, for the species. The results also revealed that 71.59% (51.57 km2) of the highly suitable habitat occurs in sub-alpine forest, 18.41% (13.26 km2) in alpine pasture and 5.63% (4.06 km2) in alpine scrub. It was found that the vegetation type/land use was the most significant variable for habitat suitability assessment of the Himalayan musk deer in KWS. The BMLR model could successfully predict the potential summer range habitat of the species (Relative Operating Characteristics curve = 0.85). The findings of this study could be of immense use in the management of this Wildlife Sanctuary for better protection and conservation of the Himalayan musk deer. Keywords Himalayan musk deer Habitat suitability Western Himalaya Binomial multiple logistic regression Conservation
Introduction Himalayan musk deer (HMD) (Moschus leucogaster, family Moschidae), is the smallest Himalayan ungulate inhabiting the cold environment (Schaller 1977). It occurs in the Himalayan region of Bhutan, northern India, Nepal and China (Groves et al. 1995; Grubb 2005; Timmins and Duckworth 2015). M. leucogaster is considered in Appendix-I of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) & Subrata Nandy [email protected] 1
Department of Space, Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Indian Space Research Organisation, Government of India, Dehradun 248001, India
2
Forest Department, Government of Uttarakhand, Dehradun, India
(Zhou et al. 2004), endangered in International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species (Timmins and Duckworth 2019) and also included in the Schedule-I of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972. The animal is ad
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