The kodkod is a highly endangered felid inhabiting almost exclusively in native forests in south-central Chile, forests that are continuously decreasing due to forestry activities and exotic pine plantations. The real impact of this scenario for the kodkod persistence is currently unknown. This project pretends to fill the gaps related to kodkod behavioural, ecological and infectious agents’ epidemiological responses in this highly fragmented landscape to promote its conservation. Although the few studies conducted on the biology of kodkod in south-central Chile have shed light on the secretive behaviour of this rare felid now considered as a native forest specialist, they have provided limited information due to the small area covered and by the fact that they did not directly test the animal behaviour. Habitat selection in carnivore species can allow us to hypothesize about patterns of habitat use and movements in a new landscape, and these could be used by managers and forestry companies to render these habitats compatible with conservation strategies of some native species like kodkod by maintaining forest fragments across the large areas increasingly being covered by pine plantations, in order to allow its movement across this human-created low quality habitat.

Through this project we will first fill the gaps in our understanding of the basic ecology of kodkod, focusing on studying how this species is adapting to a human altered landscape. With this information, we will be able to develop a conservation strategy that includes both the private industry (mainly forestry) and the rural populations, in order to make them compatible with the persistence of this endangered felid. Distribution will be determined through the use of the scent-station method. Overall, georeferenced grids will be randomly selected and visited to determine the presence/absence and the relative abundance of kodkod, calculated as a proportion of visit to total activated scent-station. Ten cats will be anaesthetized and radio-tracked by foot and car to determine habitat use in both continuous and fragmented forests.

Questionnaire survey will be carried out across randomly selected rural areas to assess the human attitudes towards this specie and the potential interaction between kodkod and poultry. The animals captured for radio-tracking will also be handled to obtain blood, faecal and ectoparasite samples to determine the prevalence to selected pathogens. These will be related to landscape attributes to determine the risk factors for the positivity to each pathogen.