Document Type : Article

Authors

• Hanie Faghihi ¹
• Bagher Nezami ^{2, 3}
• Bahman Shams-Esfandabad ⁴
• Rahman Eshaghi ⁵
• Mehdi Kia Heyrati ⁵
• Said Ghomi ⁵

¹ M.A. of Land Use Planning, College of Environment, ‎Department of Environment, Karaj, Iran

² Associate Professor, Department of Natural Environment and ‎Biodiversity, College of Environment, Karaj, Iran

³ Research Group of Biodiversity and Biosafety, Research ‎Center for Environment and Sustainable Development ‎‎(RCESD), Department of the Environment, Tehran, Iran‎

⁴ Assistant Professor, Department of Environment, Arak Branch, ‎Islamic azad University, Arak, Iran

⁵ Game Guard, Department of Environment, Mazandaran ‎Province, Iran

Abstract

Red Deer is the largest native deer in Iran. The species distribution is restricted to only some core zones of protected areas of the country. The most important factors in the decline of the population of the species are the destruction and fragmentation of its habitat, overhunting, and poaching which are strongly influenced by human activities. Therefore, modeling and identifying breeding habitats in the remaining suitable areas can help conservation managers to protect the remaining populations of this species. The core zone of the Central Alborz Protected Area is the most important core area for breeding Red Deer. In this study, we investigated the species habitat selection by the ecological niche factor analysis method. The results in the ENFA method with values of 1.3 marginalities and specialty 5.5 indicate habitat areas with higher slopes and dem than the average which has low tolerability, are preferred by the species. Accordingly, it can be concluded that the protection of the region is an important factor to conserve the species.

Keywords

• Breeding habitats
• Central Alborz Protected ‎Area
• ENFA
• habitat protection

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