Ravines as conservation strongholds for small wildcats under pressure from free-ranging dogs and cats in Mediterranean landscapes of Chile

The Chilean Mediterranean ecosystem is threatened by anthropogenic pressures, such as habitat loss by intensive agriculture and urban sprawl. Abandoned dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) and cats (Felis silvestris catus) pose conservation challenges for Chilean wildlife including the pampas cat (Leopardus colocolo) and the güiña (Leopardus guigna). We used camera trap data to investigate influences of natural and anthropogenic landscape features on spatiotemporal trends of these species. We also used co-occurrence modeling and kernel density estimation to investigate spatial and temporal patterns overlap of wildcats, free-ranging (FR) dogs, and FR-cats. FR-dogs showed the highest detection and site use probabilities, while güiñas had the lowest across 80 camera trap sites. Top models showed no spatial avoidance between species and co-occurrence of wildcats was positively influenced by forest habitat. However, FR-dogs negatively affected detection of wildcats. Ravines surrounded by forest positively influenced güiña and pampas cat detection probabilities when dominant species were not present. FR-dogs and wildcats had significantly different temporal activity patterns and low overlap coefficients, while wildcats and FR-cats showed high overlap in activity patterns. We suggest changing current policies to control domestic animals and strategic planning in agricultural areas of central Chile to better conserve native wildcat species.