WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY â–Ş 5
to roll out SMART-LEM at two more protected areas (Bolshe Khekhtsirski Reserve and Annui National Park) in 2015. We are also working with a logging company to reduce poaching outside of protected areas. Selective logging requires an ever-expanding network of logging roads that remain open and accessible for anyone even after the logging has ceased. Since spotlighting at night from a vehicle is one of the most effective means of poaching, the increasing number of open-access logging roads is dramatically increasing the ease with which poachers can Four-year comparisons of anti-poaching indicators at four protected operate. Given this situation, reducing areas following SMART implementation. Figure adapted from Hotte et access to logging roads may be the al. (in review). single most effective way to improve conditions for ungulates and tigers outside protected areas. Our pilot project, now in its fourth year, closes logging roads using cables or other means and monitors the responses of both hunters and poachers as well as changes in ungulate numbers. We are working in close consultation with the timber concessionaire in the region, who is a strong proponent of the project, being a hunter himself. We are already using this project as a means of lobbying for more broad-based actions to reduce access to logging roads throughout tiger habitat. Data collection in 2014 was hampered due to a lack of snow that prevented ungulate track counts, but we continued to collect data on poaching activity in the region, and began a satellite analysis of road density in Ternei County to illustrate the tremendous proliferation of logging roads in the region over the last two decades. For 2015 we plan to co-
These poachers were caught spotlighting for deer along an unused logging road. Although they target tiger prey for meat, they are often not averse to killing a tiger should they encounter one. Photographs Š WCS Russia.