Abundance of large mammals and distribution of illegal activities in the Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire

Abstract

The management of protected areas remains a major concern as it implies to use appropriated methods to establish best policies for the conservation. One of these methods concerns the ecological monitoring which allows following entities trends in an area. In Taï National Park, high human pressures are regularly reported, especially as immigration around the park and the need of animal proteins continue to increase. So, to understand how large mammal’s trends (the most hunted animals in the forest) evolve over time, we used line transects methodology to collect data on large mammals as well as illegal activities to determine their relative abundances. We compared relative abundances over years, as well as between the research area (a priority site in the park) and the rest of the park. Results showed an increase of relative abundance of duikers, monkeys and pygmy hippopotamuses in the research area compared to the rest of the park. Also, we found a decrease of relative abundance of illegal activities in the research area over time while that of the rest of the park remained globally constant in the same period. Our findings provide to managers information on the general ecological situation of the park and highlight the necessity for them to undertake urgent actions to better orientate policies which can help reducing threats on animals in the park.