Hair-snares: A non-invasive method for monitoring felid populations in the Selva Lacandona, Mexico

Non-invasive techniques such as hair snares have been used in conjunction with molecular methods to study species that occur at low densities and have elusive behavior, as an alternative to invasive methods such as trapping and hunting. This study was designed to evaluate the use of hair snares as a non-invasive method for the collection of felid and other mammalian samples in the tropical rainforest of the Selva Lacandona, Chiapas, Mexico. Hair snares were placed along transects in Montes Azules Biosphere Reserve for four months a year in 2005 and 2006. Hairs were selected based on morphological characteristics and identification of species was done based on a diagnostic portion of mtDNA cytochrome b region. A total of 389 hits on 888 hair-snare checks were recorded, representing a capture rate of 43%. The species identified included margay (Leopardus wiedii, n=2), ocelot (Leopardus pardalis, n=1), jaguarundi (Puma yagouaroundi, n=1), gray fox (Urocyon cinereoargenteus, n=1), tayra (Eira barbara, n=3), coati (Nasua narica, n=1), four-eyed opossum (Metachirus nudicaudatus, n=6), and common opossum (Didelphis marsupialis, n=16). The present study is the first to report the successful collection of hair samples from jaguarundi and margay in the wild and hair samples from ocelots in tropical areas. The deficit of information on carnivore populations in tropical rainforests is due mainly to the lack of appropriate methodologies that are reliable and cost-effective. This study supports the assumption that hair-snaring is viable and cost-effective in ecosystems such as the Selva Lacandona, particularly when monitoring carnivore populations that have wide geographic distributions and low densities.