Abstract
Human activities alter the composition and abundance of wildlife populations. A common awareness of these changes by stakeholders, including local people is essential for sustainable management. Hunters (n= 255) from two adjacent community hunting zones (CHZs) in Southeast Cameroon were interviewed about the species composition of the animals caught in snare traps during their beginnings in hunting and in 2015- 2016. The comparison of the trends in game composition to those from transect surveys and bushmeat records conducted in the area since the nineties revealed the followings: (1) hunters are aware of the coarse changes in prey abundance, even for the species for which population density is difficult to estimate using classic survey methods; (2) in southeast Cameroon and in forests regions with similar fauna, the bay duiker and the Peter’s duiker are clearly more abundant than the white-bellied and black fronted duiker; (3) the two sites surveyed are under different stages of prey depletion trajectory, and (4) the ranking of prey abundance by local hunters is consistent with village-based bushmeat records and is likely to reflect more the species compositions in anthropogenic forest mosaics, where hunting pressure is higher. Hunters’ interviews constitute a valuable means to rapidly assess the trends in animal populations. However, the discrepancies between perceptions and prey composition in remote forest areas draw attention to the need of caution when using local knowledge to generalize trends in fauna assemblages over large geographical scales.
Highlights
The meat of wild animals has long constituted an important source of proteins for forest-dwelling peoples in Africa (Mendelson et al, 2003)
Wild animals have been hunted in African forests with diverse “traditional” tools, including crossbows, nets, spears, and snares made of vegetal materials
Local hunters have attributed these declines to a number of factors (Table 3) including logging, which might make the animals “fleeing” to remote forest areas (77% of informants in community hunting zones (CHZ) 13 vs. 67% in CHZ 14; X2 = 0.39, df = 1, p = 0.533), overhunting (65 vs. 70%, X2 = 0.99, df = 1, p = 0.319), demographic growth (44 vs. 7%, X2 = 22.28, df = 1, p < 0.001), witchcraft (4 vs. 0%), and farming (4 vs. 6%)
Summary
The meat of wild animals (known as “bushmeat”) has long constituted an important source of proteins for forest-dwelling peoples in Africa (Mendelson et al, 2003). Wild animals have been hunted in African forests with diverse “traditional” tools, including crossbows, nets, spears, and snares made of vegetal materials. The use of “traditional” hunting tools has considerably reduced in Central African rainforests whereas most productive tools, namely metallic snares and shotguns become widespread (Noss, 1998, 2000; Wilkie and Carpenter, 1999; Fa et al, 2005); (Kümpel, 2006). The wide-spreading of cable snares and shotguns in Africa during the last decades has significantly contributed to the increase of hunting pressure they are officially banned by forest codes in most countries (Noss, 1998; Wilkie and Carpenter, 1999; Fa et al, 2005; Fa and Brown, 2009). In southeast Cameroon, wire snares constitute the main hunting tool, providing 48 to 95% of the game (Dethier, 1995; Jeanmart, 1998; Muchaal and Ngandjui, 1999; Yasuoka, 2006; Bobo et al, 2015; Yasuoka et al, 2015; Duda et al, 2017)
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