Comparative analysis of forest buffalo grouping patterns in Central Africa

Presented at the 9th international wildlife ranching symposium: wildlife - the key to prosperity for rural communities, held on 12-16 September 2016 at Hotel Safari & the Safari Court, Windhoek, Namibia in conjuction with the IUCN 2nd African Buffalo Symposium.Understanding the social organization of elusive forest-dwelling ungulates may have important conservation and management implications. We present a comparison of grouping patterns in forest buffalo across different sites and through time in Central African rainforest. We examined five sites: Mbeli Bai and Bonye Bai (Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, Republic of Congo), Dzanga Bai and Bai-Hokou (Dzanga-Ndoki National Park, C.A.R.) and Lopé-Okanda National Park (Gabon).Buffalo showed high site fidelity to open areas, including forest clearings. Forest buffalo herds (mean 12 ind. ± SD; range 3-24) were much smaller than records of savanna buffalo herds (mean 350 ind. ± SD; range 12-1500>), but also showed frequently fission-fusion patterns. Data from Mbeli Bai collected from 2012 to 2016confirm a stable presence of two buffalo herds (range 9-10 ind.) with occasional visits by lone individuals. Observations from Dzanga Bai over a period of 10 years (2006-2016) confirm the occurrence of only one buffalo herd (range 8-10ind.). In Bai-Hokou site, a single buffalo herd increased from 16 to 24 individuals during a three year period (2001-2004). Finally in Lopé National Park (a mosaic of savanna and forest fragments), the mean group size for 18 herds monitored from2002 to 2004 was 12±2 ind. (range of means=3–24). We analysed if herd size and herd stability are affected by clearing size, clearing type (e.g. marsh or land) and grass coverage across different sites and through time