Site selection for Leopard Cat Passages in a fragmented urban wildlife refuge by using space syntax

Background/Question/Methods

Much of wildlife habitats has been destructed and fragmented during the rapid industrialization and urbanization process in Korea. It is essential to connect fragmented habitats for the reduction of roadkill of many endangered urban wildlife. The site selection for wildlife passages have to take into account the behavior of wildlife species for the safe crossing of many artificial barriers in urban areas. In this study, we attempted to identify potential wildlife passage sites for the leopard cats, an endangered and protected species, of Gangseo Ecological Park in Seoul, Korea. Space syntax analysis which is an analytical technique to objectively evaluate the spatial configurations related to passage selection. As a result of space syntax analysis, the integration value represents accessibility and connectivity of spaces. In this paper, it means that the bigger the integration value, the more frequent the leopard cat passes. The leopard cats were captured and radio-tracked for 72 hours once a month from March to June of 2009. ArcGIS and Animal Movement of Hawth Tools were used to analyze the home range and movement path, and Axwoman 4.0 was used to space syntax analysis.

Results/Conclusions

 The home range of the leopard cat was 0.659 ±0.42 km² and the average movement distance a day was 2.099 ±1.08km. During the research period, the leopard cat crossed over the heavy traffic roads more than 20 times with the risk of roadkill. The range of global integration values was 0.458~1.834, while that of the local integration was 0.210~6.061.  Six sites that met across leopard cat's movement routes and roads were selected to measure the local and global integrate values. Among these sites, the higher the integration value, the higher possibility of roadkill. Thus, we suggest that two of six sites with high global and local integration values as the potential wildlife passage sites for the leopard cat. Now, the wildlife passages are under construction at the suggested site which local integration value was highest(LI=4.369). Further studies are scheduled to verify these potential sites as suitable wildlife passages.