Livestock subsidise tiger diets in a central Indian corridor: implications for human-wildlife conflict management and conservation planning

This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 2 of this Preprint. You must log in to post a comment. There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article. This is a Preprint and has not been peer reviewed. This is version 2 of this Preprint. Add a Comment You must log in to post a comment. Comments There are no comments or no comments have been made public for this article. Large carnivores, like tigers, maintain a balance within their respective ecosystem and play a critical role. However, due to their life history needs and extensive overlap with humans, they face significant threats across their distribution. These threats become severe when they inhabit non-protected areas like corridors and kill livestock. In this study, the food habits of tiger were assessed across the multi-use Kanha-Pench corridor (KPC) in Central Indian Landscape. The prey species were identified through tricho-taxonomy using 146 genetically and morphologically confirmed tiger faecal samples. A total of 17 prey species were identified, which is much higher when compared to other available studies. Additionally, tigers were also found to prey on five species (sloth bear, striped hyena, smooth-coated otter, small Indian civet, and Indian grey mongoose), which are often rare in the tiger diet. Among 17 prey species, six large-bodied prey were found to be contributed in 86.98% (relative frequency of occurrence) and 92.71% (biomass) of the tiger diet. Cattle was identified as the most preferred prey species followed by chital and nilgai. Spatial analysis identified four cattle predation hotspots across KPC. This study highlighted the opportunistic behaviour of tigers and their high dependency on cattle when it persists in a multi-use habitat. Therefore, these findings have significant management implication to conserve this large carnivore in a multi-use and non-protected habitat. https://doi.org/10.32942/X2H38B Life Sciences Panthera tigris, trophic ecology, prey selection, biomass, shared landscape, management recommendations, carnivore conservation, relative frequency of occurrence Published: 2026-05-12 09:31 Last Updated: 2026-05-12 09:34 CC-By Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Conflict of interest statement: We have no conflict of interest to declare Data and Code Availability Statement: The data include sensitive information of endangered species and hence available only on request Language: English