The distribution range of the Near Threatened Marco Polo argali, or Marco Polo sheep, Ovis ammon polii is restricted to the Pamir Mountains, spanning Afghanistan, Tajikistan, China and Pakistan. Until the early 1970s the Marco Polo argali was abundant in northern areas of Pakistan, particularly in the Khunjerab and Misgar Valleys around the Pamir Knot, bordering China, Afghanistan and Tajikistan. In Pakistan the subspecies now occurs only in one small watershed, in Khunjerab National Park, bordering China, which it visits sporadically during summer. We used map-based questionnaire surveys, double-observer surveys and camera trapping in a search for Marco Polo argali in the Pakistani Pamirs. We observed a herd of 19 individuals in Karachanai Nallah, in Khunjerab National Park, in 2012. The population that was formerly present in the Misgar Valley appears to have been extirpated, presumably as a result of anthropogenic factors such as poaching, competition with livestock, habitat disturbance, and the construction of a fence along the international border with China. Transboundary migration and range expansion into Pakistan could be facilitated by removal of the border fence adjacent to the Kilik–Mintika area and by limiting livestock grazing in former lambing areas.

The Pyrenean brown bear Ursus arctos population in the mountains between France and Spain is one of the smallest and most threatened populations of large carnivores in Europe. We assessed trends in brown bear habitat use in the Pyrenees and investigated the underlying environmental and anthropogenic drivers. Using detection/non-detection data collected during 2008–2014 through non-invasive methods, we developed dynamic occupancy models, accounting for local colonization and extinction processes. We found two non-connected core areas of occupancy, one in the west and the other in the centre of the Pyrenees, with a significant decrease in habitat use overall during 2008–2014. We also found a negative correlation between human density and bear occupancy, in agreement with previous studies on brown bear habitat suitability. Our results confirm the Critically Endangered status of the Pyrenean population of brown bears.

In 2015 10 Iberian lynxes Lynx pardinus were released in south-eastern Portugal, within the framework of a Spanish–Portuguese reintroduction project. We examined each individual's use of space and social interactions during the first year after their release. Lynxes were selected for reintroduction according to behavioural, genetic and health criteria and fitted with collars with VHF and global positioning systems. Both males and females went through an exploratory phase that lasted 65–105 days. The lynxes did not exhibit any movement directionality from the release site during the exploratory period. During August–December 2015 a stable nucleus comprising seven individuals (four males, three females) was established south-west of the release enclosure. Although the males had a slightly larger mean home range (11.18 ± SE 1.36 km2) than females (9.87 ± SE 8.71 km2), the difference was not significant. The knowledge obtained during the first year of the lynx reintroduction project in Portugal is critical to support the future of this reintroduction strategy. Our results suggest that once the soft release technique is no longer possible because of logistical constraints on the construction of more enclosures, new individuals should be released in unoccupied areas surrounded by occupied territories. This will promote strong social ties to the resident population and prevent lynx dispersal.

Organisms adapted to life at high elevations are particularly threatened by climate change, which can cause them to become isolated on mountain tops, yet their responses may vary according to their position in the food chain and their ecological flexibility. Predicting the future distributions of such organisms requires fine-tuned species-specific models. Building on a previous ecological niche model, we explored shifts in the suitability of habitats for the Endangered Andean cat Leopardus jacobita, and assessed how these will be represented within existing protected areas in the future. Using a robust set of presence records and corrected climate surfaces, we applied the Maxent algorithm to model habitat suitability for this carnivore and for its preferred prey, the mountain viscacha Lagidium viscacia. Our predictions indicate that the areas climatically suitable for Andean cats could contract by up to 30% by 2080 under the most pessimistic scenario, with an overall upwards shift of 225 m and a polewards displacement of 98–180 km. The predicted range contraction was more pronounced in the species’ core range, in the Bolivian and Peruvian Andes, whereas suitable conditions may increase in the southern range in Patagonia. Bolivia and Peru are predicted to suffer the most marked decline in habitat representativeness within protected areas. The southern range appears to be less vulnerable to climate change, offering opportunities for the conservation of this genetically distinct population. We discuss the value and limitations of using species distribution modelling to assess changes in the potential distribution and conservation status of this and other Andean species.

Crop losses to foraging elephants are one of the primary obstacles to the coexistence of elephants and people. Understanding whether some individuals in a population are more likely to forage on crops, and the temporal patterns of elephant visits to farms, is key to mitigating the negative impacts of elephants on farmers’ livelihoods. We used camera traps to study the crop foraging behaviour of African elephants Loxodonta africana in farmland adjacent to the Udzungwa Mountains National Park in southern Tanzania during October 2010–August 2014. Camera traps placed on elephant trails into farmland detected elephants on 336 occasions during the study period. We identified individual elephants for 126 camera-trap detections. All were independent males, and we identified 48 unique bulls aged 10–29 years. Two-thirds of the bulls identified were detected only once by camera traps during the study period. Our findings are consistent with previous studies that found that adult males are more likely to adopt high-risk feeding behaviours such as crop foraging, although young males dispersing from maternal family units also consume crops in Udzungwa. We found a large number of occasional crop-users (32 of the 48 bulls identified) and a smaller number of repeat crop-users (16 of 48), suggesting that lethal control of crop-using elephants is unlikely to be an effective long-term strategy for reducing crop losses to elephants.

Monitoring species ranges and suitable and occupied habitat are core components of biogeography, ecology and conservation biology, but it is difficult to do for rare, cryptic, wide-ranging, migratory or nomadic species. We present a transparent and objective process to combine multiple types of locality data (peer-reviewed and grey literature, museum collections, camera-trap inventories, and citizen science reports). We illustrate the advantages of this pooled approach by assessing change in range and patch occupancy for a data-poor and threatened nomadic keystone species, the bearded pig Sus barbatus, in Borneo, Sumatra and Peninsular Malaysia. We used a collated set of all occurrence observations (n = 240) to create minimum convex polygons for forested habitats for two time periods. We evaluated confidence that a patch was truly occupied by the overlap among data types. We found that 62% of the forest habitat of the Sumatran bearded pig S. barbatus oi was lost during 1990–2010 and that its range contracted by 76%; the Bornean bearded pig S. barbatus barbatus lost 23 and 24% of its forest habitat and range, respectively, and in Peninsular Malaysia the 93% range collapse of this subspecies during 1985–2010 is more severe than the 33% habitat loss alone would suggest. We conclude that integrating data types can improve mapping of the ranges of many data-poor species.

Endemic insular species are particularly vulnerable to anthropogenic threats. The fish-eating bat Myotis vivesi is restricted mainly to the islands of the Gulf of California in Mexico and although several aspects of its biology have been studied there are no recent accounts of its current distribution. We conducted several expeditions during 2001–2016 to verify the current geographical distribution of this bat, and to record the presence of introduced predators. We identified the localities in which maternity colonies occur, estimated the size of the bat population on Partida Norte Island in 2003, and monitored bat presence on this island during 2004–2016. We found fish-eating bats on 36 islands and maternity colonies on 19 islands. Introduced rats Rattus rattus or cats Felis catus were captured on seven islands where the bats were present, and on five islands where they were absent. We estimated a population of c. 30,000 fish-eating bats in May 2003 and we confirmed the species’ presence on Partida Norte Island during 2004–2016. Based on the information compiled from our surveys and previous studies, we discuss the adequacy of the species’ current categorization as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, and its conservation status conferred by Mexican conservation authorities.