Research overview: ocelot home ranges, density, and spacing

Radio-telemetry and spatially explicit capture-recapture studies show ocelots maintaining intrasexual territories, with male ranges overlapping several females while excluding rival males. This overview summarizes density estimates that vary widely with habitat quality, from a handful of cats per hundred square kilometers in dry fragments to far higher densities in productive rainforest. Home-range size scales inversely with prey richness and cover. The resulting spacing system means viable populations need large, connected forest blocks, and that camera-trap density figures are highly sensitive to local conditions. Quantifying these patterns underpins population viability analyses and helps managers judge whether a reserve is large enough to hold a self-sustaining ocelot population over the long term.