Decline of suitable habitats and conservation of the endangered lion-tailed macaque: land-cover change at a proposed protected area in Sirsi-Honnavara, Western Ghats, India

Habitat fragmentation, loss of habitat and other anthropogenic activities have caused a population decline in many species, caused restriction in their distribution or even led to their local extinction. We attempted to understand the impact of such pressures on the newly identified and possibly the largest population of the endangered lion-tailed macaque, Macaca silenus in the Reserve Forests of Sirsi and Honnavara, Karnataka, using a temporal series of satellite images. Classified images showed a major increase in open area with a rapid decline in vegetation cover of about 11.5% in the wet evergreen forests over the last decade, amounting to a loss at the rate of 1.9% per year. We thus consider habitat protection and restoration of evergreen forest as the top priority along with the enforcement of conservation steps, including legal action against encroachment, extraction of timber and further fragmentation, to protect this critically important habitat of the lion-tailed macaque.