Density and Activity Patterns of the Globally Significant Large Herbivore Populations of Cambodia’s Eastern Plains Landscape

The northern and eastern plains of Cambodia support the largest extent of lowland deciduous forest remaining in Southeast Asia. This landscape has also been identified as the highest priority site for tiger Panthera tigris recovery in Indochina. We estimated ungulate tiger prey densities using distance-based line transect sampling from two protected areas in the Eastern Plains Landscape between 2009 and 2011. Densities for large ungulates ranged from 1.1 ± SE 0.2 individuals/km2 for banteng Bos javanicus to 2.2 ± SE 0.2 individuals km2 for red muntjac Muntiacus muntjak. The ungulate activity patterns were correlated with activity patterns of extant large carnivores in the landscape with leopard Panthera pardus and dhole Cuon alpinus showing substantial activity pattern overlap with wild pig Sus scrofa and red muntjac, respectively. Overall tiger prey biomass was more than 540 kg/km2 of which the endangered banteng comprised greater than 80 %. However, ungulate densities were much lower than in ecologically similar sites in South Asia. This was mainly due to the absence of large deer species like Cervus deer, which have historically been extensively hunted. Nevertheless, the Eastern Plains landscape likely supports 50–60 % of the global banteng population and remains a high priority area for the conservation of large herbivores in Southeast Asia.