African golden cats (Caracal aurata Temminck, 1827; hereafter, 'golden cat') occur in the forests and forest-savannah mosaics (hereafter, 'FSM') of West and Central Africa (Bahaa-el-din et al., 2015). Another medium-sized wild felid, the serval (Leptailurus [Caracal] serval Schreber, 1776), occurs in well-watered savannah and long-grass environments that are widespread across sub-Saharan Africa (Figure 1a; Thiel, 2019). Golden cats and servals are closely related felids (Johnson et al., 2006), deriving from a common ancestor approximately 5.4 million years ago (O'Brien & Johnson, 2007). They are known to be sympatric only within a small portion of their collective geographic range, including in the Central African Republic (Hickisch & Aebischer, 2013), in the FSM of the western Congo Basin (Henschel et al., 2014) and in Uganda (Mills et al., 2019). Within the forest zone of Cameroon, camera-trap surveys have provided evidence of the golden cat in Mpem et Djim National
Carnivores are threatened across Sub-Saharan Africa mostly due to
retaliatory killing by people, the loss of prey species and their
habitats. Due to their food and space requirements, they regularly come
into conflict with humans. In many regions, information about carnivore
occurrence and human-carnivore conflict remains poorly known
particularly in parts of West-and Central Africa. Here, we assessed the
local ecological knowledge on carnivores and associated conflicts in the
forest-savannah transition zone in Cameroon. We conducted a
semi-structured questionnaire survey with 649 local inhabitants from 23
villages around the Tchabal Mbabo Mountain Range, Yoko Council Forest
and Mpem et Djim National Park. The majority of local people could
easily identify the lions (73.8%, n=479) and correctly named (90.2%,
n=432), whereas other species (e.g. leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, African
wild dogs, as well as the medium-sized carnivores) were identified with
more difficulty. Most respondents (71.3%, n=463) reported depredation
of their livestock, mostly by lions, spotted hyenas, civets and foxes
and half of respondents (50.2%, n=326) reported retaliation against
predators as the main action resorted to protect their livestock. The
use of poisons against wild predators was advocated by some respondents,
an additional threat to wild carnivores. Local people suggested
construction of enclosures (46.4%, n=301) as the most important
mitigation measures. Our study provides baseline information on
carnivore occurrence in Cameroon’s transitional forest savannah
environments and threats to these animals from local people.
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.
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