High abundance and large proportion of medium and large duikers in an intact and unhunted afrotropical protected area: Insights into monitoring methods

Abstract

AbstractUnsustainable hunting of bushmeat has dramatic impacts on ecological processes and people's livelihoods. Unfortunately, there is often a strong controversy regarding the sustainability of duiker hunting due to their continued presence in bushmeat markets, on the one hand, and the predictions of sustainable harvest models for duiker abundance, on the other. This apparent contradiction is largely due to biased low abundance estimates from dung surveys. We present results from a 52.4 km line transect dung survey using site decay rates to estimate duiker densities. In addition, camera trapping (14,995 camera trap‐days) was used to provide detection rates and a baseline for the ratio of blue to red duikers as an index of hunting pressure from Nouabalé‐Ndoki National Park, with almost zero levels of hunting. Dung surveys revealed high overall duiker densities (totalling 107.4 duikers per km2) and quick dung decay rate. Camera trapping revealed high‐duiker detection rates and a high ratio of red to blue duikers. Pristine protected areas and no‐hunting zones continue to act as source habitats for high recruitment of harvested species. We discuss future options for monitoring duikers and applying the ratio of red to blue duikers as an index of the level of duiker hunting.