A pilot study on home range of female Chinese goral ( Naemorhedus griseus ): exploring GPS tracking data in a cliff landscape

ABSTRACTHome range size estimation is an important basis for developing effective conservation strategies and provides important insights into the study of animal behavior and spatial ecology. We analyze home range variations and the fitfulness of estimation methods on Chinese gorals (Naemorhedus griseus) living at a cliff landscape with GPS tracking data. We report annual, seasonal, and monthly home range sizes of five female Chinese gorals tracked from February 2015 to September 2018. We found variations existed in 95% seasonal home range sizes among estimation methods. We recommend that the α-LoCoH model be used in home range estimations, as this model appeared to more accurately reflect animal locations within the steep cliff habitat in our study area. Furthermore, more animals should be GPS tracked to ensure the validity of any interpretation concerning their home range size in a rugged habitat. This study was the first conducting home-range GPS tracking of Chinese gorals in their northern distribution range. Additionally, our findings provided previously unknown information regarding the home range traits of this endangered species, and they may contribute to the development of effective conservation strategies.KEYWORDS: Chinese goralhome rangeminimum convex polygonkernel density estimationα-local convex hull AcknowledgementsWe would like to extend our gratitude to all the staff in the Inner Mongolia Saihanwula National Nature Reserve for their valuable support in helping us capture and collar the animals, as well as maintaining the habitats. We thank the coordinator editor and two anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments on the original manuscript.Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (No. 20141123).