Breeding Habitat Suitability Modeling of White-rumped Vulture (Gyps bengalensis, Gmelin JF, 1788) in Proximity to Vulture Restaurants in Central Low Land of Nepal

Nishan Baral^1*Suraj Joshi¹Nitant Rai²Ankit Bilash Joshi³Kiran Poudel⁴Shailendra Kumar Yadav⁵

• ¹Global Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (GIIS), Kathmandu, Nepal
• ²Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Blacksburg, United States
• ³Bird Conservation Nepal, Kathmandu, Kathmandu, Nepal
• ⁴School of Forestry and Natural Resource Management, Tribhuwan University, Kathmandu, Nepal
• ⁵Institute of Forestry, Tribhuwan University, Hetauda, Hetauda, Nepal

White-rumped Vulture, Gyps bengalensis, is distributed throughout the South-Asian countries. It is mostly confined to the tropical and sub-tropical regions. South Asian countries recorded a decline of more than 97% of three resident species, including the White-rumped Vulture, since mid-1990s. The study focused on predicting the breeding habitat suitability of White-rumped Vultures in Nawalparasi east and Rupandehi districts in central low land of Nepal, where vulture restaurants have been operating. The site visit for the study was conducted in December-January, 2021. A total of 52 nests were recorded in the study area. Using the MaxEnt approach, the generated model resulted with a mean Area Under Curve (AUC) of 0.950 with a standard deviation of 0.011, and a TSS value of 0.8207 indicating good model robustness. The average of the 10 models 'maximum test sensitivity plus specificity Cloglog threshold' value was 0.5784.Using this, we produced a binary map and found that 96.88 km 2 (3.82%) of the total of 2532 km 2 area was suitable breeding habitat for the White-rumped Vulture. Categorical variable, Land Use Land Cover (LULC) with categories "forest" with positive correlation and "agricultural land" with negative correlation had the highest contribution in the model building with 50.5% contribution, so it was the most important variable for breeding habitat selection by White-rumped Vulture. It was followed by biome with category "Tropical Subtropical grassland, savannas, and shrubland" with 21.8% and Euclidean distance from water source with 12.8%, contribution respectively as other top contributor. Contribution of forest was attributed to presence of suitable trees for nesting and absence of carcass in open field due to the tradition of burying dead cattle was suggested to be the reason for negative correlation based on various literatures. Further, easy detectability of carcass in grassland and savannah, appropriate humidity for hatching of egg and deposition of carcass near water bodies were suggested to be major reasons for contribution of these variables respectively, based on reviewed literatures and research works. Based on these results, the study recommended vulture management sectors to focus on management of these variables prioritizing accordingly to conserve the White-rumped Vulture.