Small‐ and medium‐sized mammals of the Kafa Biosphere Reserve, Ethiopia

Abstract

The Kafa Biosphere Reserve (KBR) is the largest montane forest reserve in Ethiopia and was declared officially a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) biosphere reserve in 2010. Only recently, however, has the reserve been surveyed in terms of its small‐ and medium‐sized mammal inhabitant species. The KBR supports a diverse variety of habitat types, which are increasingly under pressure from anthropogenic degradation. During the 2014 dry season and 2019 wet season, we used traps, mist‐nets, acoustic signals, photography and roadkill surveys to assess the small‐ and medium‐sized mammals of the reserve. We recorded 17 small‐ and five medium‐sized mammal species, almost half (45.5%) being endemic to Ethiopia. The grayish‐brown shaggy rat (Dasymys griseifrons) and two fruit bats (Epomophorus gambianus and Hypsignathus monstrosus) were recorded in the reserve for the first time. As a next step, a large‐scale, detailed inventory of the mammals in a wider area of southwestern Ethiopian forests and wetlands, including prevailing anthropogenic threats, is required. Notwithstanding, immediate conservation action by regional and national authorities to prevent further habitat loss to reduce the risk of local extinction is needed, particularly for endemic species or those exhibiting limited range distributions in southwestern Ethiopia.

A range’s core should not only be important in research

“…Scrolling down recent contents of AJE, we can notice that we published many excellent articles that were directly or indirectly important for addressing aspects of habitat loss and fragmentation, but with a clear substantial attention to the “core” and not to “what surrounds it” (the matrix). For instance, we published several demographic studies and other interesting observations/data focusing on wildlife species within protected pristine areas (e.g., Amin et al, 2022; Gush et al, 2022; Lee et al, 2023; Meheretu et al, 2022; Sonhaye‐Ouyé et al, 2022; Turikunkiko et al, 2022; Uwizelimana et al, 2022), whereas those focusing on the matrix areas surrounding pristine protected areas were much less (Kifle & Bekele, 2022; Kisingo et al, 2021; Ncube & Tarakini, 2022).…”