Medhi Sangita, Saikia Malabika Kakati
Department of Zoology, Suren Das College, Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, India.
Animal Ecology and Wildlife Biology Laboratory, Department of Zoology, Gauhati University, Guwahati, Assam, 781014, India.
Sci Rep. 2025 Sep 5;15(1):32366. doi: 10.1038/s41598-025-01484-3.
The prospective for conflict between wildlife conservation and human interference are apparent from many restricted areas. The animals changed behavioral response to human presence can be considered as a tool/index to measure the disturbance. This study is an attempt to find out the strength of animal's behavioural responses to human intruders through disturbance distance of Indian rhinoceros in Kaziranga National Park and help in fulfilling the dynamic function. The study was carried out in Kaziranga National Park from 2016 to 2018. Road transect method was used and the data was collected by scan animal sampling. The collected data was then analyzed with the help of SPSS. Different types of bahavioural response were recorded at various distance. The alert distance, flushing distance and chasing distance were found to be significantly different. Various other factors like habitat and wind direction influence the disturbance distance. Woodland shows less disturbance distance, while short grassland shows the highest. The disturbance distance was found to be higher when there was no wind and when the wind direction was from animal to observer. This is probably due to the strong hearing power and sense of smell respectively. The general linear model shows the contribution of all the variables on disturbance distance. Implementations of buffer zones based on the alert distance can increase the tolerance of the animals and reduce the disturbance.
野生动物保护与人类干扰之间冲突的可能性在许多限制区域都很明显。动物对人类存在的行为反应变化可被视为衡量干扰的一种工具/指标。本研究旨在通过卡齐兰加国家公园印度犀牛的干扰距离，找出动物对人类入侵者行为反应的强度，并有助于实现动态功能。该研究于2016年至2018年在卡齐兰加国家公园进行。采用道路横断面法，通过扫描动物抽样收集数据。然后借助SPSS对收集到的数据进行分析。在不同距离记录了不同类型的行为反应。发现警戒距离、惊飞距离和追逐距离有显著差异。栖息地和风向等其他各种因素会影响干扰距离。林地的干扰距离较小，而短草地的干扰距离最大。在没有风以及风向从动物指向观察者时，干扰距离较高。这可能分别是由于动物强大的听力和嗅觉。通用线性模型显示了所有变量对干扰距离的影响。基于警戒距离实施缓冲区可以提高动物的耐受性并减少干扰。
