The sparsity of post-translocation monitoring data for rehabilitated felids leaves a pressing gap in our current understanding of their integration into and use of novel landscapes. Remote monitoring tools such as GPS collars can provide crucial insights into animal movement behavior and habitat selection following translocation and assist in the decision-making process for rehabilitation and release sites. In January 2023, a young male ocelot was released on the Osa Peninsula, Costa Rica, after eight months of rehabilitation following a vehicle strike. Six months of post-translocation monitoring using a GPS and VHF-enabled collar revealed distinctive spatial patterns between the ocelot’s initial exploratory phase (~75 days) and subsequent residential period, as well as a selection for agricultural-forest matrix habitat over primary forest. We discuss the findings in terms of learning lessons for future post-release monitoring effects and provide insight into an individual’s patterns of habitat selection in an anthropogenically modified landscape.

Costa Rica, GPS tracking, habitat selection, monitoring, ocelot, rehabilitation, telemetry

Rehabilitation and reintroduction of injured wildlife can represent crucial conservation approaches to protecting important populations in anthropogenically modified landscapes (Paterson et al. 2021). However, one of the main challenges that rescue and rehabilitation initiatives face is assessing the success of wildlife releases and whether these practices realistically impact conservation outcomes (Guy et al. 2013; Pyke and Szabo 2018; Hernandez 2019). Post-release monitoring is a valuable tool for making assessments of wildlife reintroductions, but it can be challenging to implement in forested landscapes where direct observations of released individuals are rare (Bubac et al. 2019). GPS tracking technology can address the many difficulties of monitoring and characterizing post-release survival and reintegration, particularly as success is typically defined by the survival of specific individuals.

Post-release monitoring is especially challenging for rehabilitated wild felids. There is little information available on their post-release welfare, activity, and success (Houser et al. 2011), likely because they are typically nocturnal and difficult to observe. Range-wide, populations of Neotropical wildcats are in decline due to retaliatory human conflict, habitat loss/fragmentation, and prey defaunation (Sandom et al. 2017). These threats become compounded in mixed-use landscapes, where cats are more likely to encounter human structures and use a variety of human-disturbed habitats.

Costa Rica has the highest wildlife roadkill incidence in Central America, and ocelots (Leopardus pardalis Linnaeus, 1758) are the most common feline victims of vehicle strikes (Villalobos-Hoffman et al. 2022). Flexible habitat and diet requirements allow ocelots to take advantage of mixed-use landscapes (Oliveira et al. 2010), and they have been previously documented to select for pasture and agricultural areas at a higher rate than other small Neotropical felids (Sandom et al. 2017). While this flexibility is crucial in sustaining ocelot abundance and population dynamics, it also means an increase in movement around human settlements and roads that bisect their habitat, likely leading to more collisions. In non-fatal cases where animals are taken to rescue centers, there is often little documentation of the post-rehabilitation release process. Previous successful applications of GPS tracking collars on ocelots are generally limited to wild capture and subsequent monitoring (Moreno et al. 2012). Post-release monitoring data for rehabilitated Leopardus species with GPS devices is scant, and past post-release monitoring has been short-term due to the death or recapture of the released individual (Montalvo et al. 2022).

To help address the paucity of information on post-release monitoring of rehabilitated felids, we provide the record of an ocelot rescue, rehabilitation, and release. We use data from a satellite and a VHF-enabled collar system to describe a landscape-level approach to post-release movement analysis and individual territory establishment. This work provides rare insight into how small felids may respond to translocations and reintegrate into mixed-use landscapes. We discuss our findings in terms of management and lessons learned for the monitoring of future rehabilitated felids in this area and beyond.

Published accounts of post-release monitoring of rehabilitated felids in Neotropical landscapes are rare, and long-term success benchmarks can be difficult to measure (Pyke and Szabo 2018; Cope et al. 2022). In the first phases of release, when translocated animals are especially vulnerable, GPS devices provide insight into territory establishment and survival that is nearly impossible with other monitoring methods. Long-term monitoring of this individual with camera traps could possibly have been accomplished with higher camera trap density and effort in the area. The scarcity of data on the focal individual from the two deployed camera traps and visual reports both underscores the limitations of these techniques and further highlights the importance of satellite tracking technology when attempting to establish reliable evidence of translocation success or failure (Recio et al. 2011).

Here we present six months of GPS location data that show distinctive patterns of early displacement and later territory establishment of this translocated ocelot. Movement patterns established distinct periods post-release: exploratory (days 1–75) and residential phases (>75 days). After the initial exploratory period, habitat selection patterns skewed toward disturbed habitat, despite the availability of high-quality habitat such as primary and secondary forest near the release site (Fig. 3C). We believe that these patterns could occur for two, non-mutually exclusive reasons. Firstly, prior camera trap surveys in the surrounding area recorded high densities of resident ocelots (Sergeyev et al. 2023; Vargas Soto et al. 2023). This young male likely encountered high competition for available territory, contributing to early displacement and increased distance moved per day during the exploratory phase. Competition with more mature individuals or other sympatric carnivores could have pushed the ocelot out of occupied territory and into less favorable habitat, such as grasslands, until the territory of the more established individuals became available (Mares et al. 2008; Sergeyev et al. 2023). Secondly, though we have little information on the ocelot’s habitat before its injury and rehabilitation, a high proportion of the area close to the collision site is dominated by agricultural or human activities. The ocelot may have had a learned preference for disturbed habitats or was accustomed to feeding on domesticated animals such as chickens and so sought out a familiar environment after its release. Movement patterns from the later residential period, when the ocelot favored pasture/grassland habitat and secondary forest/forest edge areas, could also indicate natal habitat preference induction (Stamps and Swaisgood 2007). Camera traps in this area showed prey species that are known to be present in disturbed habitats and could constitute familiar wild prey items for this individual prior to its rescue and rehabilitation (Vargas Soto et al. 2022).

Future ocelot or small felid post-release monitoring efforts may consider the existing density of ocelots and sympatric carnivores when evaluating a potential release site, along with the suitability of the surrounding available habitat and other factors that will impact success (Montalvo et al. 2022). Although potential intraspecific competition faced after release is difficult to predict, the density of conspecifics can play a role in long-term success (Cope et al. 2022). Due to their flexible habitat and diet requirements, ocelots and other generalist species could be well-suited to release in mixed-use landscape matrices, where they have access to a variety of prey and habitat types to compensate for the effects of competition with resident individuals (Oliveira et al. 2010).

While the overall movement patterns of this individual do indicate a period of reduced space use (after day 75), with a relatively short post-release monitoring period of six months, it is unclear if this ocelot established a true territory or home range. For the purposes of this analysis, we assume that six months was sufficient for this individual to establish a territory, but longer-term monitoring could have revealed further home range shifts or altered patterns of habitat selection. Previous observations of postnatal dispersal and later home range establishment by subadult ocelots showed the process can take up to 18 months, even where familial competition rates were low (Mares et al. 2008). Ideally, post-release tracking could last the full duration of a translocated individual’s integration into the new landscape, although this post-translocation vulnerability period has been suggested to last up to four years (Bubac et al. 2019). However, monitoring for a longer period involves trade-offs against limitations on GPS collar weight for smaller-bodied species such as ocelots. Longer monitoring periods require either longer battery life and therefore a heavier collar or less frequent data collection, possibly limiting the conclusions surrounding habitat selection or movement patterns (Recio et al. 2011). Lighter-weight or higher-functionality collars may also be cost-prohibitive for post-rehabilitation release projects (Foley and Sillero-Zubiri 2020). Recapture of a released individual to change a collar or collar battery would significantly extend post-release monitoring time; however, recapture can be difficult to guarantee in a wild setting.

While this work has revealed important patterns and insights into post-release monitoring, given that the results presented here relate to a single individual, the degree to which we can generalize these findings to other ocelot rehabilitation and release initiatives remains to be determined. If we want to tease apart if competition or an existing preference for more disturbed habitats caused the focal animal to select degraded landscapes far from the release site, we would have to monitor multiple ocelot individuals raised and released in a variety of different landscape contexts. Despite the limitations of analysis for single individuals released after rehabilitation, future releases with consistent, long-term post-release monitoring can contribute to this expanding dataset. This type of analysis would only be possible with long-term, close collaboration between wildlife rehabilitation centers and wildlife researchers, existing examples of which are rare at broad scales (Guy et al. 2014; Paterson et al. 2021).

Rehabilitated and rescued animals can be suitable candidates for relocations, but release outcomes often remain unclear due to a lack of consistent data-driven post-release monitoring and movement analysis. Here we have provided one of the first fine-scale GPS assessments of an ocelot’s distinctive movement patterns and habitat selection during six months of post-release monitoring. To fully determine the utility of wildlife release as a species conservation and biodiversity reconstruction tool, longer-term assessments of post-release behavior are needed (Houser et al. 2011; Guy et al. 2013; Paterson et al. 2021). With the growing popularity of both wildlife rehabilitation and conservation translocations as a rewilding tactic, increased collaboration between wildlife rescue centers and conservation organizations will help us understand the value of rescue and translocation for improving the health and viability of wildlife populations.

The authors would like to thank the following individuals for their contribution to this work, without which this study would not have been possible. Eduardo Tubelli, Priscilla Peralta, and Diego Rolim for their support during the drafting of this manuscript and their contributions during fieldwork to transport and track the ocelot. Enzo Basso Quinche, for assistance in editing this manuscript. The authors from Alturas Wildlife Sanctuary would also like to thank Larissa Thelin for her support and input throughout the process. Thank you to Alessandra De Zal for providing the photo used in Fig. 1A. Thanks to the volunteers and researchers who assisted in fieldwork. Finally, we thank the reviewers and the handling editor for their time and comments on the manuscript.