Hunting sustainability, species richness and carnivore conservation in Colombian Amazonia

Colombia embraces 7% of the Amazon basin, a worldwide conservation priority ecosystem, and most of it overlaps with indigenous territories. Some indigenous communities live inside protected areas and the impact of people in parks on biodiversity is uncertain. This work compares harvests measures hunting sustainability from indigenous people, prey species richness and carnivore density in a protected area and an unprotected area in Amazonia. Field data collection was collected for 14 months by recording hunting harvests from indigenous groups inside and outside Amacayacu National Park and camera trapping in their respective hunting catchment areas. Hunting harvests, catchment areas sizes and hunters effort where comparable between sites, Catch Per Unit (CPU) effort was slightly here in the unprotected site, nevertheless hunters harvested equal biomass to those in the park. Hunting of the largest mammal species at both sites showed evidence of unsustainable extraction rates and were taken more often than expected from availability. The majority of hunting occurred within 15 km from towns and hunting within the first 5 km was higher in the unprotected area. Relative abundance indexes of game species presented no strong difference between sites. Edge effect from hunting towns was evident at a large scale and the probability of detecting game species and carnivores farther from town was significantly higher. Jaguar (Panthera onca) and ocelot (Leopardus pardalis), densities did not vary significantly outside or inside the park. These densities are reported for the first time in Colombia. Prey base of indigenous communities showed decreased abundance outside the park, and the continuing hunting pressure could drive large game species to local extinction, unless limits to human increase and sustainable hunting is achieved, particularly in the unprotected area