In pre-colonial and colonial times Cô te d'Ivoire probably hosted one of the largest elephant populations in West Africa, resulting in the country's name Cô te d'Ivoire (in English Ivory Coast) by French settlers. Numbers declined and by the early 90s it was estimated that the total number of both savannah and forest elephants had reached 63 to 360 elephants in the entire country. Here we present updated information on the distribution and conservation status of forest elephant in Cô te d'Ivoire based on multiple sources-dung counts on line transects, records of human-elephant conflict, media reports, sign and interview surveysobtained during the period 2011-2017. We used Pearson correlation to determine the correlation between the presence of forest elephant and site variables (size of the forest, percentage of area converted into plantation, size of the forest left, size of human population inside the PA, poaching index, distance to the nearest road, population density in the Department, level of protection of the PA). To examine the effect of ecological traits on elephant extirpation, we used Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to check for multicollinearity among variables. Based on dung count elephant presence was confirmed in only 4 of the 25 protected areas surveyed. PAs with higher level of protection have higher probability to be home of elephant population. The viability of these populations is uncertain, since they have a small size and are isolated. Aggressive conservation actions including law enforcement for the protection of their remaining habitat and ranger patrolling are needed to protect the remaining forest elephant populations.
The Dassioko Sud and Port Gauthier Forest Reserves are important wildlife refuges in southern Cô te d'Ivoire, harboring several endangered mammalian taxa. Between July 2012 and June 2016, foot patrols were conducted in these reserves by teams consisting of local villagers, Société de Développement des Forêts employees, law enforcement personnel, and the authors. The purpose of the patrols was to help curb poaching and illegal farming/logging and to collect information on wildlife. Over the length of the patrol period, both reserves experienced significant declines in illegal activities, including prior to the 2014 EBOLA outbreak. Both reserves continue to be pressured by persons living in surrounding villages; however, our results demonstrate that foot patrols involving local personnel can lead to significant declines in illegal activity inside such conservation areas.
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