Live capture and handling of Taiwanese leopard cats Prionailurus bengalensis: an evaluation of trap designs and capture protocol

Behavioural and ecological studies often require capture and handling of animals for marking or collaring. Cage traps, in various designs, are commonly used for live-capture of small mammals. Apart from costs and practicality, trap designs need to balance trap success and safety for the trapped animal. Inevitably, trapping and handling causes stress for the animals involved and can even result in injury or mortality. To optimise trap methods, it is important to share experiences. In this study, we describe our trapping and handling protocol for leopard cat, an elusive small felid which can be challenging to trap. We determine which factors influence trap success and compare three custom made cage trap designs: aviary-, box- and side-traps. We found that trap chance was affected by trap design, location and seasonality but, despite being causes of leopard cat mortality, not by human or domestic dog presence. The side-trap provided the best tradeoff between trap success and safety, and was economic and easy to handle. Sacrificing live-bait was unnecessary to successfully trap leopard cats. More male than female leopard cats visited the traps, resulting in a sex-bias in trapped individuals. Due to a long response time, especially when continuous trap monitoring was absent, the time between leopard cat capture and release was > 10 h (mean +/- SE = 16:18 +/- 01:57 h). We therefore recommend to always use remote continuous monitoring devices when trapping animals. Although not related to drug dosage, recovery time was negatively related to the distance leopard cats moved after release, whereas total time between capture and release was not. To minimize exposure to human and domestic dog related threats, we released leopard cats after nightfall within their natural 18:00-06:00 h activity time, and only released individuals once fully responsive, which took > 4 h.