New study says despite direct competition, tigers, leopards, and dholes are living side by side in protected areas in India. Usually, big cats and wild canids live in different locations to avoid each other.

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In four relatively small reserves in India's wildlife-rich Western Ghats region, WCS researchers have found that they are co-existing, despite competing for much of the same prey, including sambar deer, chital, and pigs.

The authors found that in reserves with an abundance of prey, dholes, which are active during the day, did not come in much contact with the more nocturnal tigers and leopards.

In Bhadra Reserve where prey was scarcer, their active times overlapped, yet dholes still managed to avoid the big cats.

In Nagarahole, a park teeming with all three carnivores and their prey, leopards actively to avoid tigers.

Said Ullas Karanth, WCS Director for Science in Asia and lead author of the study: "Tigers, leopards, and dholes are doing a delicate dance in these protected areas, and all are manging to survive. We were surprised to see how each species has remarkably different adaptations to prey on different prey sizes, use different habitat types and be active at different times. Because of small and isolated nature of these high prey densities in these reserves, such adaptions are helpful for conservationists trying to save all three."

Understanding these separate yet overlapping species' needs is critical to managing predators and prey in small reserves, which is increasingly the scenario of the future.

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