1. Large carnivores face high extinction risks, often exacerbated by the absence of adequate information on their ecological requirements, and the high economic and socio‐political commitments that their conservation warrants. Country‐scale conservation plans can serve as effective frameworks to prioritise areas, actions, and conservation investments.
2. We explore conservation tenets of retention, recovery, and restoration for the Endangered dhole Cuon alpinus in India – a global stronghold for the species. Specifically, we: 1) examine the current status of dholes in India’s states using a recent distribution assessment; 2) identify areas for directing management interventions – zones to be targeted for population recovery and for habitat recovery; 3) identify potential areas for range expansion; 4) use eco‐socio‐political criteria to determine state‐wise conservation priority scores and likelihood of conservation action; and 5) conduct an exhaustive review of all published literature on dholes.
3. Dholes occupy ~49% of potential habitats in 685 of mainland India’s 2342 sub‐districts. We identified 143 sub‐districts with potential for dhole population recovery, 145 for habitat recovery, and 404 for range expansion. Of the 34 mainland states/union territories, 17 were identified as high priority for dhole conservation. Of these, nine are adequately equipped to implement management actions to conserve dholes, while eight need to improve capacity towards increasing likelihood of conservation success.
4. Literature on dholes (from 1874 to 2019; n=237) was dominated by natural history notes, followed by distribution records and studies of population ecology. A majority of the reviewed studies were from India (55% of 215 country‐specific papers). The number of studies showed an exponential increase over time: 43% were published in the last decade.
5. Our review of published literature revealed significant knowledge gaps in terms of quantitative ecological assessments across all dhole range‐countries. Given this context, our results provide a comprehensive, multi‐dimensional, and administratively feasible road map for dhole conservation in India, with potential applicability in other dhole range‐countries and also for other threatened species.

中文翻译：

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保护印度濒临灭绝的无尾洞Cuon alpinus的战略路线图

1. 大型食肉动物面临高度灭绝的风险，通常由于缺乏有关其生态需求的充分信息以及其保护所要求的高度经济和社会政治承诺而更加恶化。国家规模的保护计划可以作为有效的框架，对区域，行动和保护投资进行优先排序。
2. 我们探索了印度濒危黑洞Cuon alpinus（该物种的全球据点）的保留，恢复和恢复的保护原则。具体来说，我们：1）使用最近的分布评估来检查印度各州的黑洞现状；2）确定指导管理干预措施的区域–人口恢复和生境恢复的目标区域；3）确定潜在的范围扩大领域；4）使用生态，社会，政治标准来确定州一级的保护优先级评分和保护行动的可能性；和5）对所有有关野鸭的文献进行详尽的审查。
3. 在印度大陆的2342个分区中的685个中，约有49％的潜在栖息地位于洞穴中。我们确定了143个具有潜在种群恢复潜力的分区，145个栖息地恢复潜力和404个范围扩展潜力。在大陆的34个州/工会地区中，有17个被确定为水塘保护的高度优先事项。其中有九个具备充分的能力来实施管理措施来保护空洞，而八个则需要提高能力以增加保护成功的可能性。
4. 关于野鸭的文献（1874年至2019年；n = 237）主要由自然史笔记，其次的分布记录和种群生态学研究所主导。大部分经过审查的研究来自印度（215份针对特定国家的论文中占55％）。研究数量显示出随着时间的推移呈指数级增长：在过去十年中发表了43％。
5. 我们对已发表文献的回顾表明，在所有盲区国家中，在定量生态评估方面存在重大知识空白。在这种情况下，我们的研究结果为印度的conservation类保护提供了全面，多维且在行政上可行的路线图，在其他种类的range域国家和其他受威胁物种中也具有潜在的适用性。