Divergent trends of large carnivore populations within the Bénoué Complex, North Cameroon, shown by long-term fine-scale monitoring

Large carnivore populations have suffered declines worldwide. For the African continent, these have been particularly strong in West and Central Africa. The Bénoué Complex in North Cameroon, located in Central Africa, is a key landscape for their conservation. We determined spatiotemporal trends in...

Ausführliche Beschreibung

Gespeichert in:
Bibliographische Detailangaben
Veröffentlicht in:European journal of wildlife research 2020-10, Vol.66 (5), Article 82
Hauptverfasser: Bakker, C. E., Kirsten, I. E., Bauer, H., Croes, B. M., Tamis, W. L. M., Tumenta, P. N., Adam, S., Kamgang, A. S., de Iongh, H. H.
Format: Artikel
Sprache:eng
Schlagworte:
Online-Zugang:Volltext
Tags: Tag hinzufügen
Keine Tags, Fügen Sie den ersten Tag hinzu!
Beschreibung
Zusammenfassung:Large carnivore populations have suffered declines worldwide. For the African continent, these have been particularly strong in West and Central Africa. The Bénoué Complex in North Cameroon, located in Central Africa, is a key landscape for their conservation. We determined spatiotemporal trends in lion ( Panthera leo ), leopard ( Panthera pardus ) and spotted hyaena ( Crocuta crocuta ) abundance, using repeated spoor counts on transects from 2007 to 2015. Results of the temporal analysis indicate that lion and spotted hyaena abundance reduced over time across the complex, whereas leopards only declined in the last 2 years and primarily in the Faro Block. From the spatial analysis, it became clear spoor abundances differ between areas within the Bénoué Complex and between management types: Spoor densities were especially higher in Bouba Ndjida National Park and the hunting zones around Faro. This effect is most probably related to a more effective management strategy in these areas. Our fine-scale long-term monitoring technique provides a low-cost, easy to implement, multi-scale and effective tool for the identification of both regional and range-wide carnivore conservation hotspots.
ISSN:1612-4642
1439-0574
DOI:10.1007/s10344-020-01420-y