Figure 1 Modeling process for building potential habitat for the
red panda
Relative abundance and habitat association
Red pandas are elusive thus, it is hard to estimate their population
size through direct sightings. So, the Encounter Rate (ER) of their
signs was used as a standard method to measure their relative abundance
(Ghose & Dutta 2010; Bista et al. 2017). We calculated the ER as number
of red panda signs per km. Habitat associated variables including
topographic and vegetation covariates were analyzed using Principal
Component Analysis (PCA) in FactoMineR package
(LĂȘ et al. 2008).