Reply to “Comments on ‘Spatial Utilization and Microhabitat Selection of the Snow Leopard (Panthera uncia) under Different Livestock Grazing Intensities’”

Abstract

We thank Luxom and Sharma for their attention to and comments on our study. In recent years, livestock have been expanding into snow leopard habitat, and we conducted this study to examine the effects of that encroachment on snow leopard habitat within Wolong Nature Reserve. Specific responses to Luxom and Sharma’s comments include the following: 1) Many habitat factors influence carnivore–habitat relationships at varying spatial scales, and it is difficult for any single study to address the full suite of factors acting across all scales of selection. Given this fact and the limited spatial scale of our snow leopard sign survey, we mainly focused on snow leopard space use and microhabitat selection. 2) Our results are not necessarily conflicting, but more research is required to further explain how high sign densities, concentrated space use, and weak habitat selection behaviors might relate to each other. 3) We agree that examining a gradient of grazing intensities would be preferable, but because of the difficulty in collecting sufficient field data and the nature of livestock grazing patterns in our study area, we think that dividing our survey area into high- and low-grazing-disturbance areas was appropriate. 4) The original intent of this study was to examine habitat factors and response to livestock within our study area in Wolong Nature Reserve, and we did not intend for our specific results to be used for management recommendations beyond Wolong but instead encourage similar studies to be conducted in other areas.