Land-use change has led to substantial range contractions for many species. Such contractions
are particularly acute for wide-ranging large carnivores in Asia’s high altitude areas,
which are marked by high spatiotemporal variability in resources. Current conservation
planning for human-dominated landscapes often takes one of two main approaches: a
“coexistence” (land sharing) approach or a “separation” (land sparing) approach. In this
study, we evaluated the effects of land-use management on a guild of large carnivores in
a montane ecosystem located in northeastern Iran. We used interview surveys to collect
data on Persian leopard Panthera pardus saxicolor and grey wolf Canis lupus and modeled
the areas occupied by these species in a Bayesian framework. After accounting for imperfect
detection, we found that wolves had a higher probability of occupying the study area
than leopards (82%; 95% CI 73–90% vs. 63%; 95% CI 53–73%). Importantly, each predator
showed contrasting response to land-use management. National Parks (i.e. human-free
areas) had a positive association with leopard occupancy (αNational Park = 2.56, 95% CI
0.22–5.77), in contrast to wolves, which displayed a negative association with National
Parks (αNational Park = − 1.62, 95% CI − 2.29 to 0.31). An opposite pattern was observed
for human-dominated areas (i.e. Protected Areas and Communal Lands), where occupancy
was higher for wolves but lower for leopards. Our study suggests that to protect these large
carnivores, a combination of land sharing and land sparing approaches is desirable within
Iran montane landscapes. Any recovery program for big cats in Iranian mountains, and
likely similar mountainous landscapes in west Asia, should take into account other sympatric
carnivores and how they can affect adjacent human communities. For example, conflict
mitigation and compensation efforts are required to include the guild of large carnivores,
instead of solely targeting the charismatic big cats