Abstract
Understanding how threatened wildlife can coexist with humans over the long term is a central issue in conservation and wildlife management. Komodo National Park in Eastern Indonesia, harbors the largest extant populations of the endemic Komodo dragon (Varanus komodoensis). Consistent with global trends, this species is expected to be increasingly exposed to human activities and in particular growing ecotourism activities. Here we comprehensively evaluated how human activities affected individual and population level attributes of Komodo dragons. We compared Komodo dragons phenotypic (behaviour, body size, and body condition) and demographic (age structure, sex ratio, survival, and density) responses to variation in human activities across national park. Komodo dragons were found to exhibit pronounced responses to high human activity level relative to sites with low and negligible human activities. Komodo dragons exposed to ecotourism exhibited significantly less wariness, larger body mass, better body condition, and higher survival. These results are entirely consistent with ecotourism activities that provided Komodo dragons with long-term and substantial nutritional subsidies as a consequence of feeding and human food refuse. However, we also noted the potential negative consequences of altered behaviour and adult-biased populations in ecotourism areas which may influence demographic processes through intraspecific competition or predation. To address this issue, we recommend that three management strategies to be implemented in future include: (1) removal of human-mediated nutritional subsidies, (2) alternative ecotourism, and (3) spatial regulation of ecotourism. Furthermore, we advocate the development of approaches to achieve a socio–ecological sustainability that benefits both people and wildlife conservation.
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Acknowledgements
We thank Komodo National Park staff, field assistants, and Muhamad Azmi who assisted us with different facets of this study. Major funding for this study (2002–2006) was awarded to TSJ via a Conservation Research Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Zoological Society of San Diego. Later funding support (2007 onwards) was provided by the Komodo Species Survival Plan of the Association of Zoo and Aquarium. This research was conducted via Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the Zoological Society of San Diego, and the Indonesian Department of Forestry and Conservation (PHKA) or via a Cooperation Agreement (PK) between Komodo Survival Program and Komodo National Park.
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AR, TSJ, and AA conceived the ideas and designed the study; DP, AA, MJI, TSJ, and AR collected the data; TSJ analyzed the data; AR and TSJ led the writing of manuscript. All authors contributed to the drafts and gave final approval for publication.
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Communicated by David Hawksworth.
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Ardiantiono, Jessop, T.S., Purwandana, D. et al. Effects of human activities on Komodo dragons in Komodo National Park. Biodivers Conserv 27, 3329–3347 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-018-1601-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-018-1601-3