Habitat Suitability Patches for Urial Wild Sheep Ovis vignei Conservation in Darmian Protected Area

Urial Wild Sheep (Ovis orientalis arkali) is the biggest wildsheep species of Iran which is distributed in east of country, as an indicator in hilly habitats. This species has been recognized as Vulnerable in Redlist threaten species, due to Habitat loss and fragmentation and poaching. As such, to improve management strategies, we should identify suitable habitats and diagnose influential factors for management and conservation. In this study we identified suitable habitats model of Urial according to the direct observation by means of Maximum Entropy (MaxEnt) software in Darmian Protected Area. We used 18 environmental parameters and the model could predict the high potency validity by AUC=0.92 in predicting habitat suitability. According to the results, the most suitable habitats for Urial are related to slope, elevation range of 2600 to 3000, annual mean temperature and maximum temperature in warmest month. The results showed that control of livestock grazing, habitat degradation due to agriculture and poaching are needed for effective Urial population management in Darmian PA.