Questionnaire surveys Selleck CP 690550 were administered to collect data on livestock losses from settlements within the protected area. Diet variation was assessed for the differentially managed zones. Odour, prey alarm calls, presence of crows and lion signs (tracks and drag marks) were used to locate prey carcasses (hereafter

referred to as kills). The distinction between lion and leopard kills was based on evidence around the kill such as pugmarks and predator hair, mode of feeding and state of kill remains (Chellam, 1993). Asiatic lions are social predators consisting of female prides and male coalitions that hunt and feed independently (Meena, 2009). Lions typically rip apart, scatter carcass remains when feeding together and eventually completely consume the prey, leaving nothing edible behind. Paclitaxel order Leopards on the other hand, start feeding from the rump, hide the rumen sac and cache kills (Chellam, 1993). Frequency of occurrence of a prey species was calculated as the number of times a specific prey item occurred and was expressed as percentage of all prey occurrences. Seasonal diet variation as well as differences in diet between different geographical areas of the protected area was tested using χ2 analysis (Zar, 1999). Lion scats were collected mainly along roads and forest tracks. Lion scats were clearly distinguishable

from leopard scats based on their much larger size. Nevertheless, carnivore signs associated with scats were additionally

recorded. All scats were stored in tagged polythene bags and later washed using a sieve to separate undigested prey remains such as hair, bone fragments, hooves, feathers, quills and claws. All remains were oven-dried for further examination. For a reliable estimate of lion’s diet, standard prescribed protocols – examination of a minimum of at least 20 prey hairs per scat and minimum 30 scats – were adopted (Mukherjee, Goyal & Chellam, 1994; Jethva & Jhala, 2003). Microscopic slides of randomly picked hair from a sample were washed in xylene and examined under a light microscope. Prey were identified by comparing medullary characteristics of prey hair with known standard reference hair (Karanth & Sunquist, 1995). Frequency 上海皓元 of prey obtained from analysis of scats was subjected to re-sampling to obtain confidence limits on the mean percentage of prey in the scats (Reynolds & Aebischer, 1991). This involved iterating sub-samples of the same size 10 000 times using bootstrapping in the computer programme simstat (Peladeau, 1995). Representation of prey intake as per cent frequency of occurrence of the seven major prey species based on scat data can be misleading due to variation in relative contribution of various prey species that vary with varying body size.