🧬 The Felid Wiki — 3,000 research summaries

Silver and colleagues adapted the tiger camera-trap framework to jaguars, whose unique rosette patterns serve as individual marks. Working in Belize and across Latin American sites, they detailed prac…

Scott C. Silver, Linde E. T. Ostro, Laura K. Marsh, Leonardo Maffei, Andrew J. Noss, et al. · Oryx · 2004

Sherwen and Hemsworth reviewed and reframed the visitor effect, drawing on human-animal interaction science from farm animals to argue that visitors are a salient and often underestimated feature of t…

Sherwen SL, Hemsworth PH · Animals · 2019

Schneider and colleagues systematically investigated factors that determine how well automated species-recognition models perform on camera-trap images, identifying training-set size, the number of sp…

Stefan Schneider, Saul Greenberg, Graham W. Taylor, Stefan C. Kremer · Ecology and Evolution · 2020

Moeller, Lukacs, and Horne introduced a family of estimators, the space-to-event, time-to-event, and instantaneous-sampling models, to estimate abundance of unmarked animals from camera-trap data with…

Anna K. Moeller, Paul M. Lukacs, Jon S. Horne · Ecosphere · 2018

Using long-term field data from Indian reserves, this study tested how strongly tiger numbers are governed by the abundance of wild ungulate prey. The authors combined prey density surveys with camera…

Karanth KU, Nichols JD, Kumar NS, Link WA, Hines JE · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2004

Combining camera-trap density estimates with line-transect surveys of prey across multiple Indian reserves, this study demonstrated a strong relationship between the abundance of large ungulate prey a…

Karanth, K. U., Nichols, J. D., Kumar, N. S., Link, W. A., Hines, J. E. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2004

Using camera-trap density estimates of tigers alongside line-transect surveys of ungulate prey across many Asian sites, Karanth and colleagues tested whether predator density is governed by prey avail…

K. Ullas Karanth, James D. Nichols, N. Samba Kumar, William A. Link, James E. Hines · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2004

Karanth and colleagues combined rigorous camera-trap capture-recapture estimates of tiger density with line-transect estimates of ungulate density across Indian reserves to test whether prey biomass p…

Karanth, K.U., Nichols, J.D., Kumar, N.S., Link, W.A. & Hines, J.E. · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2004

This study used a multi-scale occupancy framework to examine how Sumatran tigers use natural forest versus plantation and degraded landscapes, finding that tigers strongly depend on forest cover and a…

Sunarto, S., Kelly, M.J., Parakkasi, K., Klenzendorf, S., Septayuda, E., Kurniawan, H. · PLoS ONE · 2012

Sunarto and colleagues used multi-scale occupancy modeling, informed by camera-trap and field detections, to investigate how Sumatran tigers respond to forest cover and human-modified landscapes inclu…

Sunarto, Marcella J. Kelly, Karmila Parakkasi, Sybille Klenzendorf, Erin Septayuda, Harry Kurniawan · PLOS ONE · 2012

Hunter, Durant and Caro examined the decisions cheetahs make at carcasses when dominant competitors threaten, quantifying how the presence of lions and hyenas governs whether and when cheetahs abandon…

Hunter, J.S., Durant, S.M. & Caro, T.M. · Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology · 2007

Bashaw, Bloomsmith, Maple and Bercovitch tested whether feeding-based enrichment changes behaviour in tigers and lions, comparing a hung carcass-like 'fishing' device and bones against standard feedin…

Bashaw MJ, Bloomsmith MA, Maple TL, Bercovitch FB · Zoo Biology · 2003

Treves and Bruskotter examined the psychology and policy of human tolerance for large predators, arguing that tolerance, the willingness to coexist with carnivores, is the decisive factor in their con…

Adrian Treves, Jeremy T. Bruskotter · Science · 2014

This study examined the long-standing hypothesis that dental injury drives big cats to hunt humans and livestock, using the Tsavo and Mfuwe man-eating lion specimens. The authors documented severe too…

Bruce D. Patterson, Ellis J. Neiburger, Samuel M. Kasiki · Journal of Mammalogy · 2003

Studying pumas around human development in California, this research found that cougars exposed to greater human presence killed more prey, apparently to compensate for abandoning kills and spending l…

Smith JA, Wang Y, Wilmers CC · Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2015

This influential study quantified broken teeth among large carnivores from the Rancho La Brea asphalt deposits, including Smilodon fatalis, dire wolves, American lions, and coyotes. Tooth breakage rat…

Blaire Van Valkenburgh, Fritz Hertel · Science · 1993

Gomez Villa and colleagues were among the early adopters of very deep convolutional neural networks for camera-trap species identification, testing architectures on challenging real-world images from…

Alexander Gomez Villa, Augusto Salazar, Francisco Vargas · Ecological Informatics · 2017

Westlund argued that positive-reinforcement training should be viewed as a form of environmental enrichment in its own right, not merely a husbandry convenience. She described how training sessions pr…

Westlund K · Journal of Veterinary Behavior · 2014

Analyzing records of leopards captured and released far from capture sites across India, this study challenged translocation as a standard response to conflict. Translocated leopards frequently attemp…

Athreya V, Odden M, Linnell JDC, Karanth KU · Conservation Biology · 2011

Athreya and colleagues analysed the outcomes of capturing leopards from conflict situations and releasing them elsewhere in Maharashtra, a common management response in India. Using records of leopard…

Vidya Athreya, Morten Odden, John D. C. Linnell, K. Ullas Karanth · Conservation Biology · 2011

This study demonstrated efficient airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2 between domestic cats under experimental conditions. Cats inoculated with the virus passed it to co-housed naive cats without dire…

P. J. Halfmann, M. Hatta, S. Chiba, et al. · New England Journal of Medicine · 2020

This synthesis used southern sea otters as sentinels to trace how the cat-derived parasite Toxoplasma gondii moves from land into the sea. The authors integrated parasitology, oceanography and epidemi…

P. A. Conrad, M. A. Miller, C. Kreuder, et al. · International Journal for Parasitology · 2005

Sun, Fuller, and Royle examined through simulation how detector spacing and array geometry affect bias and precision in spatially explicit capture-recapture estimates. They demonstrated that when dete…

Catherine C. Sun, Angela K. Fuller, J. Andrew Royle · PLOS ONE · 2014

This influential synthesis argued that the loss of large apex consumers, including big cats and other top predators, is among humanity's most pervasive impacts on nature. Drawing on examples across ec…

Estes, J. A., Terborgh, J., Brashares, J. S., et al. · Science · 2011

Estes and a large group of coauthors synthesized evidence that the loss of apex consumers, including big cats, is among humanity's most pervasive influences on nature. The review marshaled cases acros…

Estes, J.A., Terborgh, J., Brashares, J.S. et al. · Science · 2011

Wilmers and colleagues showed that reintroduced wolves in Yellowstone act as ecosystem benefactors by providing a steady, more evenly distributed supply of carrion to scavengers, buffering them agains…

Wilmers, C.C., Crabtree, R.L., Smith, D.W., Murphy, K.M. & Getz, W.M. · Journal of Animal Ecology · 2003

Tan, Stellato and Niel reviewed the evidence on letting cats roam freely outdoors, weighing welfare risks and benefits against effects on wildlife and people. They synthesized literature showing that…

Sophie M. L. Tan, Anastasia C. Stellato, Lee Niel · Animals · 2020

This study established a quantitative baseline for cheetah reproductive physiology by electroejaculating wild-caught males and comparing their semen to that of domestic cats. The cheetahs produced eja…

Wildt DE, Bush M, Howard JG, O'Brien SJ, Meltzer D, van Dyk A, Ebedes H, Brand DJ · Biology of Reproduction · 1983

This edited volume assembled the foundational synthesis of urban carnivore biology, bringing together chapters on species from coyotes and foxes to felids, and on cross-cutting themes of disease, conf…

Gehrt SD, Riley SPD, Cypher BL · Johns Hopkins University Press · 2010

This study combined toxicology, gene-expression and immune profiling to show that bobcats exposed to anticoagulant rodenticides in urban southern California exhibited altered immune function, providin…

Serieys LEK, Lea AJ, Epeldegui M, Armenta TC, Moriarty J, VandeWoude S, Carver S, Foley J, Wayne RK, Riley SPD, Uittenbogaart CH · Proceedings of the Royal Society B · 2018