title: Glucocorticoid Stress Responses of Reintroduced Tigers in Relation to Anthropogenic Disturbance in Sariska Tiger Reserve in India.
abstract: Tiger (Panthera tigris), an endangered species, is under severe threat from poaching, habitat loss, prey depletion and habitat disturbance. Such factors have been reported causing local extermination of tiger populations including in one of the most important reserves in India, namely Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR) in northwestern India. Consequently, tigers were reintroduced in STR between 2008 and 2010, but inadequate breeding success was observed over the years, thus invoking an investigation to ascertain physiological correlates. In the present study, we report glucocorticoid stress responses of the reintroduced tigers in relation to anthropogenic disturbance in the STR from 2011 to 2013. We found anthropogenic disturbance such as encounter rates of livestock and humans, distance to roads and efforts to kill domestic livestock associated with an elevation in fecal glucocorticoid metabolite (fGCM) concentrations in the monitored tigers. In this regard, female tigers seem more sensitive to such disturbance than males. It was possible to discern that tiger's fGCM levels were significantly positively related to the time spent in disturbed areas. Resulting management recommendations include relocation of villages from core areas and restriction of all anthropogenic activities in the entire STR.
authors.affiliation: Wildlife Institute of India, Chandrabani, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
authors.forename: Subhadeep
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Bhattacharjee
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES), CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, India.
authors.forename: Vinod
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Kumar
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES), CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, India.
authors.forename: Mithileshwari
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chandrasekhar
authors.affiliation: Wildlife Institute of India, Chandrabani, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
authors.forename: Manjari
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Malviya
authors.affiliation: Endocrine Research Laboratory, Department of Anatomy and Physiology, University of Pretoria, Onderstepoort, 0110, South Africa.
authors.forename: Andre
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ganswindt
authors.affiliation: Wildlife Institute of India, Chandrabani, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
authors.forename: Krishnamurthy
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Ramesh
authors.affiliation: Wildlife Institute of India, Chandrabani, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.
authors.forename: Kalyanasundaram
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Sankar
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for the Conservation of Endangered Species (LaCONES), CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad, India.
authors.forename: Govindhaswamy
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Umapathy
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017753:Ecosystem; D056727:Endangered Species; D005243:Feces / Q000737:chemistry; D005260:Female; D005938:Glucocorticoids / Q000032:analysis*; D007194:India; D008297:Male; D013312:Stress, Physiological; D046010:Tigers / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D005938:Glucocorticoids