Responses of Sunda clouded leopard Neofelis diardi population density to anthropogenic disturbance: refining estimates of its conservation status in Sabah A NDREW J. H EARN ,J OANNA R OSS ,H ENRY B ERNARD ,S OFFIAN A. B AKAR B ENOIT G OOSSENS ,L UKE T.B. H UNTER and D AVID W. M ACDONALD Abstract Extensive areas of tropical forests have been, and continue to be, disturbed as a result of selective timber ex- traction. Although such anthropogenic disturbance typical- ly results in the loss of biodiversity, many species persist, and their conservation in production landscapes could be enhanced by a greater understanding of how biodiversity re- sponds to forest management practices. We conducted in- tensive camera-trap surveys of eight protected forest areas in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo, and developed estimates of Sunda clouded leopard Neofelis diardi population density from spatially explicit capture–recapture analyses of detec- tion data to investigate how the species’ abundance varies across the landscape and in response to anthropogenic dis- turbance. Estimates of population density from six forest areas were .–. individuals per  km  . Our study pro- vides the first evidence that the population density of the Sunda clouded leopard is negatively affected by hunting pressure and forest fragmentation, and that among select- ively logged forests, time since logging is positively asso- ciated with abundance. We argue that these negative anthropogenic impacts could be mitigated with improved logging practices, such as reducing the access of poachers by effective gating and destruction of road access points, and by the deployment of anti-poaching patrols. By calcu- lating a weighted mean population density estimate from es- timates developed here and from the literature, and by extrapolating this value to an estimate of current available habitat, we estimate there are  (% posterior interval –,) Sunda clouded leopards in Sabah. Keywords Borneo, forest management, Neofelis diardi, population density, selective logging, Sunda clouded leop- ard, spatially explicit capture recapture Introduction A lthough still containing some of the largest contiguous tracts of forested land in South-east Asia, the rainfor- ests of Borneo are undergoing amongst the highest global levels of forest degradation and loss, principally as a result of selective timber extraction and subsequent conversion to oil palm Elaeis guineensis plantations (Gaveau et al., , ; Cushman et al., ). The intricate ecological re- sponses to selective logging of Borneo’s forests remain un- clear for most species, yet several studies have indicated that many can persist after such management, with only a mi- nority of species studied so far exhibiting markedly reduced post-logging densities (e.g. Meijaard et al., ; Costantini et al., ). In comparison, the conversion of these forests to oil palm production has been shown to result in a sub- stantial reduction in biodiversity and functional diversity (Fitzherbert et al., ; Yue et al., ), a pattern mirrored region-wide (Wilcove et al., ). Thus, although logged forest undoubtedly has lower intrinsic value to biodiversity conservation than pristine forest, it is becoming increasingly clear that further gains to conservation could be achieved if management of production forests were improved to min- imize negative impacts on biodiversity (Meijaard & Sheil, ). However, such an optimization approach, based on an understanding of how biodiversity responds to forest management practices and other anthropogenic distur- bances, is currently lacking for many species, and remedying this knowledge gap remains a priority. The Sunda clouded leopard Neofelis diardi is a medium- sized felid, endemic to the islands of Borneo, where it is the terrestrial apex predator, and Sumatra. The species is cate- gorized as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, based on a pre- sumed small and declining population size (Hearn et al., a). However, assessment of its conservation status and development of effective conservation actions are hindered by a lack of understanding regarding the species’ abun- dance, distribution and responses to anthropogenic disturb- ance (Hearn et al., b). Records of Sunda clouded leopards inhabiting a diverse range of forest types, including ANDREW J. HEARN (Corresponding author), JOANNA ROSS and DAVID W. MACDONALD Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, The Recanati-Kaplan Centre, Tubney, UK E-mail andrew.hearn@zoo.ox.ac.uk HENRY BERNARD Institute for Tropical Biology and Conservation, Universiti Malaysia Sabah, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia SOFFIAN A. BAKAR Sabah Wildlife Department, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia BENOIT GOOSSENS Danau Girang Field Centre, c/o Sabah Wildlife Department, Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia; Organisms and Environment Division, School of Biosciences, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK; and Sustainable Places Research Institute, Cardiff University, Cardiff, UK LUKE T.B. HUNTER Panthera, New York, USA Received  January . Revision requested  March . Accepted  June . First published online  September . Oryx, 2019, 53(4), 643–653 © 2017 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605317001065 https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605317001065 Published online by Cambridge University Press