Post-translocation monitoring of an Egyptian Spiny-tailed Lizard, Uromastyx aegyptia (Forskål 1775), population displaced by a global giga-project

Infrastructure development programs and giga-projects (massive development initiatives) on the ArabianPeninsula are implementing large-scale faunal translocation efforts to promote nature recovery. Consequently, manyspecies that have been locally extirpated are being restored. However, extant species also can be subject to translocationswhen populations are threatened by infrastructure development. Such is the case with the vulnerable Egyptian SpinytailedLizard (Uromastyx aegyptia) population in the boundary of the NEOM giga-project spanning 26,500 km2 inthe Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA). Surveys were conducted to quantify Egyptian Spiny-tailed Lizard distributionand home range overlap within the infrastructure development footprint. Individual animals detected within thatfootprint were then captured and released in a reserve outside the path of construction. Post-release monitoring iscritical to promote establishment of populations of translocated animals. We herein present a novel method of activeburrow counts, measured over time, as a proxy for monitoring trends in population size of translocated lizards. Weconducted ground surveys of the translocation site during the hot season to achieve a complete count of lizard burrowswithin a 5.95 km2 fenced release area within NEOM’s Mneifa Wildlife Reserve (MWR). We found that 74% ofthe 244 burrows that we detected were active and made 31 direct observations of adult animals. Thus, we detectedstrong evidence of an established population one year after translocation. The active-burrow count system that wedeveloped is not unique to burrowing lizards and is suitable for all subterranean species of conservation concern. Noveltechniques such as this will be essential to quantifying the establishment of post-translocation populations of species ofconservation concern throughout the Arabian Peninsula and beyond.