Potential connectivity for sloth bear habitats in Western India’s landscape.

Ecological corridors have been identified as an important tool in the conservation of sloth bears by providing the structural and functional connectivity between isolated habitats. We evaluated possible connectivity linking five protected habitats in Gujarat state (India). The resistance score was developed for layers impeding the movement of sloth bears using the Analytical hierarchy process (AHP). Maximum resistance was shown by areas with human–bear conflict locations followed by land use/land cover. Based on the resistance scores, we mapped six potential corridors amongst protected habitats through least-cost path corridor analysis. Our results show the two links with minimum resistance between Ratanmahal–Shoolpaneshwar and Balaram Ambaji–Jambughoda. In the latter linkage, a large Euclidean distance tends to lower the quality of the corridor. A single link identified connecting Jessore and Balaram is potentially an important path to conserve the habitat in the north. We estimated the centrality flow along with the least cost path (LCP) assessing the importance of each node representing protected habitats in developing connectivity. Analysis revealed Balaram Ambaji as an important link in developing the connectivity through all the habitats for sloth bears in Gujarat state. The present study allows conserving potential habitats with less density of sloth bears by connecting them with highly dense habitats through ecological corridors. Developing the ecological corridors once validated on ground level can lead to long-term conservation of wildlife residing across the disconnected areas in the state, this, in turn, will assist in improving the quality of habitats while promoting co-existence amongst the humans and bears. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]