Journal of Threatened Taxa | www.threatenedtaxa.org | 26 July
2019 | 11(9): 14244–14246
New record of Blanford’s Fox Vulpes cana (Mammalia:
Carnivora: Canidae) in central Oman: a connection between the northern and
southern populations
Taimur Alsaid 1, Abdulrahman Aluwaisi 2, Sultan Albalushi
3, Zahran Alabdulsalam 4, Said Alharsusi
5 & Steven Ross 6
1–6 Office for Conservation of the Environment,
Diwan of Royal Court, P.O. Box 246, Muscat, Sultanate of Oman.
1 tatsaid@diwan.gov.om (corresponding author), 2
abdull0085@gmail.com, 3 smsalbalushi@diwan.gov.om, 4 zasabdsalam@diwan.gov.om,
5 super.harsusi@gmail.com, 6 steveross.oce@gmail.com
doi: https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.4908.11.9.14244-14246
| ZooBank: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:172EC05F-159B-4251-8621-FD08ABD5DFE8
Editor: Brian L. Cypher, California State University
Stanislaus, Bakersfield, USA. Date of publication: 26
July 2019 (online & print)
Manuscript details: #4908 | Received 21 February
2019 | Final received 30 June 2019 | Finally accepted 03 July 2019
Citation: Alsaid, T., A. Aluwaisi,
S. Albalushi, Z. Alabdulsalam,
S. Alharsusi & S. Ross (2019). New record of Blanford’s Fox
Vulpes cana (Mammalia: Carnivora: Canidae) in
central Oman: a connection between the northern and southern populations. Journal of Threatened Taxa 11(9): 14244–14246. https://doi.org/10.11609/jott.4908.11.9.14244-14246
Copyright: © Alsaid et al. 2019. Creative Commons Attribution
4.0 International License. JoTT allows unrestricted use, reproduction, and
distribution of this article in any medium by adequate credit to the author(s)
and the source of publication.
Funding: Office for
Conservation of the Environment,
Diwan of Royal Court.
Competing interests: The authors declare no competing
interests.
Acknowledgements: This study
was made possible by the permission of the Minister of the Diwan of Royal
Court, H.E. Sayyid Khalid bin Hilal
al Busaidi, under the direction of Mr Yasser Al
Salami, the Office for Conservation of the Environment, Diwan of Royal
Court. Thanks to the director of Al Wusta Wildlife Reserve, Mr. Haitham Al Amari, the wildlife
biologists, and the staff for their help.
A special thanks to Dr. Mansoor Al Jahdhami, the managing director of Environmental Affairs,
for initiating this project and for his constant support and help. Furthermore, we would also like to show our
gratitude to Eng. Salah Al Mahthori, the director of
Environmental Affairs in Muscat, alongside Mr. Waheed
Al Fazari, head of Wildlife Section, for providing
insight and expertise that greatly assisted the research. Finally, we thank the administration and
finance departments for their help in logistics and administration work.
The Blanford’s Fox Vulpes
cana is a small (1kg) canid associated with arid,
rocky habitats within mountains and wadis (also known as valleys or dry river
beds, fills up after heavy rain) (Geffen 1994).
The species has a wide distribution ranging from Afghanistan in the
north to Egypt, Pakistan, and Yemen in the south (Geffen 2004). Due to the inaccessibility of its habitat and
its strictly nocturnal activity patterns, the species was only recently
recorded from Dhofar in southern Oman (Harrison & Bates 1989). It is also known to be present in the
northern Hajar Mountains of Oman (S. Ross & Spalton,
pers. obs. 2002) and in the United Arab Emirates (Smith et al. 2003). In Oman, the Blanford
Fox populations in the Hajar Mountains and the southern Dhofar Mountains are
separated by approximately 650km of largely flat gravel desert and sand
dunes. Although the IUCN Red List has
mistakenly indicated that this area is within the Blanford
Fox’s range in Oman (Hoffmann & Sillero-Zubiri
2015), the area contains very little suitable habitat and there has been no
published records or any indication through local sightings or Bedouin folklore
of the presence of the species in the central regions of the country. Here we describe a small isolated population
of the Blanford’s Fox found within Al Wusta Wildlife Reserve (WWR) in central Oman.
The study area is located in and around WWR, Al Wusta Governorate, Oman (Fig. 1). The WWR consists of a flat limestone gravel
desert, which is bounded by the Huqf escarpment,
consisting of large boulders and cliffs of up to 100m. The escarpment drops to the Huqf depression and the coastal hills (Massolo
et al. 2008; Fig. 1). The area is
hyper-arid, receiving approximately 13.7mm of rainfall per annum (PACA 2018);
however, water is often available in winter from fogs arising from the Arabian
Sea and moving through the area. The WWR
is home to several large mammal species and a mesocarnivore
guild including Wildcat Felis silvestris lybica, Red Fox Vulpes
vulpes, Rüppell’s Sand
Fox V. rueppellii, and Honey Badger Mellivora capensis. Small mammal prey includes Arabian Spiny
Mouse Acomys dimidiatus
and Gerbils Gerbillus spp. The vegetation cover is very sparse in the region
between periods of rainfall. Plant cover
mostly consists of trees of Prosopis cineraria, Acacia ehrenbergiana, and A. tortilis
and scattered perennial shrubs and grasses.
From May 2016
to August 2018, we set up 169 camera traps (Bushnell Trail Cams) throughout the
study area as part of an ongoing study of mammalian biodiversity. Cameras were set for a minimum of six months,
using a 5km x 5km grid to systematically sample the study area (Fig. 1). Cameras were installed at a height of
0.25–0.75 m above the ground to survey large and medium mammals, using normal
infrared sensor sensitivity to trigger a three-photograph burst with a 5s-delay
between captures. The camera traps
sampled an area of approximately 5,400km2 (Fig. 1). We successfully retrieved data from 153
cameras, set for a total of 53,524 trap nights.
Camera trap images of Blanford’s Fox were
easily distinguished from that of Red Fox and Rüppell’s
Sand Fox using a combination of snout and ear shape and length, body
proportions, and the presence of a bushy tail with a black tip.
Blanford’s Fox was detected at only two camera locations, C38
and C81 (Fig. 1). C38 was set for 529
days on a small flat area on a mountain surrounded by large boulders and small
cliffs, 50m above a large valley. C38
detected Blanford’s Fox on four occasions (Image 1a)
and also photographed Nubian Ibex, Arabian Gazelle Gazella
arabica, and Red Fox. C81 was set
for 537 days on a mountain pass within a small mountain range consisting of
large boulders, cliffs, and wadis. C81
detected Blanford’s Fox on three occasions (Image 1b)
and also photographed Nubian Ibex, Arabian Gazelle, Red Fox, and domestic camel
Camelus dromedarius. All images of Blanford’s
Fox were taken in the dark between 17.56h and 03.36h.
Despite a very large camera trapping effort and a
large sampled area, all of the cameras that photographed Blanford’s
Fox were in a small cluster, covering an area of approximately 46km2. Although further research is required, the
low and clustered incidence of Blanford’s Fox
sightings in the study area suggests that the population may be both small and
isolated. It is difficult to know the
reason for the populations’ small size, as very few people use the area. It could be a combination of poor habitat
quality and intraguild competition with Red Fox, which is a relatively common
species in the area. There is also the
possibility that the population is a remnant from dispersing Blanford’s Foxes from the northern or southern populations,
located approximately 310km and 330km away, respectively.
Blanford’s Fox is classified as Least Concern by the IUCN Red
List and is not a priority species for conservation. The small and isolated nature of the WWR
population, however, warrants special regional protection. As the area is close to the port of Duqm, which is currently experiencing rapid industrial
development, the area is likely to see increased disturbance in the near
future. Fortunately, the identified
population exists inside WWR, making protection of the population less
complicated. A special protection and
research plan should be initiated to protect and understand the origin and
relationship of the population with both Dhofar and Hajar Mountain Blanford’s Fox populations.
For figure
& image – click here
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