Hunting and sale of Pangolins across Sub-Saharan Africa: a preliminary analysis

Pangolins (Pholidota: Manidae) are hunted and traded for their meat and scales. We conducted preliminary analyses on the hunting and sale at markets of four species of pangolin across Sub-Saharan Africa based on data from the OFFTAKE database. Our analyses show that all four species of African pangolin are hunted and sold at markets throughout much of Sub-Saharan Africa. The proportion of pangolins as part of the total vertebrates hunted has increased significantly during the 43 years, from 1972-2014, for which we have data

What constitutes a useful measure of protected area effectiveness? A case study of management inputs and protected area impacts in Madagascar

Peer reviewe

Using Machine Learning to Make the Most out of Free Data: A Deforestation Case Study

Deforestation remains a major environmental issue and is studied for a range of reasons such as informing policy decisions, predicting at risk areas and evaluating interventions. Despite there being a range of machine learning (ML) techniques with a proven record in complicated, non-linear problems, many of these are rarely applied to deforestation analysis. We propose that this is partially due to uncertainty in the environmental services field regarding how these models perform compared to standard statistics. There is also a lack of guidance on which situations various models are suitable for. We compared the three ML techniques of artificial neural networks (ANNs), Bayesian networks (BNs) and Gaussian Processes (GP’s) against classical generalised linear models (GLMs) and generalised linear mixed models (GLMMs). Each technique was evaluated using several performance metrics as well as being assessed on their suitability for meeting three core objective requirements of deforestation studies; predicting location, predicting quantity and identifying predisposing factors. Constraints such as implementation time and difficulty were also considered. The datasets used for model training were restricted to freely available or low cost datasets to allow evaluation of their potential usefulness. All models were able to provide good general predictions of the location of deforestation. None of the techniques implemented using the selected datasets were suitable for directly predicting the amount of deforestation, however the GLMMs and BNs were useful in predicting deforestation risk and assessing the relative importance of deforestation predictors. GPs performed well when few deforestation predictors were available and the ANNs in some instances outperformed the GLMMs. The available resources were found to be a major influence when deciding which techniques are suitable for a given study

Changes in wild meat hunting and use by rural communities during the COVID‐19 socio‐economic shock

There is limited quantitative evidence of the effects of socio‐economic shocks on biological resource use. Focusing on wild meat hunting, a substantial livelihood and food source in tropical regions, we evaluated the impacts of the shock from Nigeria's coronavirus disease (COVID‐19) lockdown on species exploitation around a global biodiversity hotspot. Using a 3‐year quantitative dataset collected during and after the lockdown (covering 1008 hunter‐months) and matching by time of year, we found that successful hunting trip rates were more frequent during the lockdown, with a corresponding increase in the monthly number, mass, and value of animals caught. Moreover, hunters consumed a larger proportion of wild meat and sold less during lockdown, compared to non‐lockdown periods. These results suggest that local communities relied on wild meat to supplement reduced food and income during the lockdown, buffering the COVID‐19's socio‐economic shock. Our findings also indicate that wild species may be especially vulnerable to increased hunting pressure during socio‐economic shocks

Towards a Sustainable, Participatory and Inclusive Wild Meat Sector

First paragraph: Expanding human demands on land, sea and fresh water have led to our planet experiencing unprecedented levels of wildlife declines and extirpations (Ceballos et al., 2017). The Living Planet Index (LPI) as an indicator of global vertebrate abundance declined by up to 58% between 1970–2012 (WWF, 2016). In the most recent version of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List as many as 32% of assessed vertebrate species are decreasing in terms of both population size and range (IUCN 2017). Larger species are suffering the steepest and most irreversible declines (Dirzo et al., 2014; Ripple et al., 2014, 2015). As wildlife is lost, biodiversity is reduced and ecosystem integrity suffers (Dirzo et al., 2014; Young et al., 2016)

New range limits of the sun-tailed monkey, Cercopithecus solatus, in Central Gabon

Cercopithecus solatus is a recently discovered monkey endemic to Gabon, present in parts of the Lopé National Park and the Forêt des Abeilles in the center of the country. It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List (2010) due to its restricted extent of occurrence and continuing decline in population caused by high hunting pressure. All known field observations of this species are compiled here. Data collected since 1999 show that C. solatus occurs further to the south, east, and west than was previously known, and that its extent of occurrence almost certainly includes three national parks, rather than one

A global analysis of management capacity and ecological outcomes in terrestrial protected areas

Protecting important sites is a key strategy for halting the loss of biodiversity. However, our understanding of the relationship between management inputs and biodiversity outcomes in protected areas (PAs) remains weak. Here, we examine biodiversity outcomes using species population trends in PAs derived from the Living Planet Database in relation to management data derived from the Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool (METT) database for 217 population time-series from 73 PAs. We found a positive relationship between our METT-based scores for Capacity and Resources and changes in vertebrate abundance, consistent with the hypothesis that PAs require adequate resourcing to halt biodiversity loss. Additionally, PA age was negatively correlated with trends for the mammal subsets and PA size negatively correlated with population trends in the global subset. Our study highlights the paucity of appropriate data for rigorous testing of the role of management in maintaining species populations across multiple sites, and describes ways to improve our understanding of PA performance

A global analysis of management capacity and ecological outcomes in terrestrial protected areas

AbstractProtecting important sites is a key strategy for halting the loss of biodiversity. However, our understanding of the relationship between management inputs and biodiversity outcomes in protected areas (PAs) remains weak. Here, we examine biodiversity outcomes using species population trends in PAs derived from the Living Planet Database in relation to management data derived from the Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool (METT) database for 217 population time‐series from 73 PAs. We found a positive relationship between our METT‐based scores for Capacity and Resources and changes in vertebrate abundance, consistent with the hypothesis that PAs require adequate resourcing to halt biodiversity loss. Additionally, PA age was negatively correlated with trends for the mammal subsets and PA size negatively correlated with population trends in the global subset. Our study highlights the paucity of appropriate data for rigorous testing of the role of management in maintaining species populations across multiple sites, and describes ways to improve our understanding of PA performance.</jats:p

WILDMEAT interventions database: A new database of interventions addressing unsustainable wild meat hunting, consumption and trade

First paragraph: Wild meat has long been used as a source of food and income by many communities across the tropics (Ingram et al., 2021). Recently, however, growing human populations and increasing commercial trade to urban markets have driven up demand and prices for wild meat products and led to unsustainable levels of wildlife harvesting in many places (Coad et al., 2019). Overexploitation of wildlife has been linked to significantly reduced wildlife populations (Benítez-López et al., 2017) and increased extinction risk for many medium and large-bodied species (Dirzo et al., 2014). The loss of these species poses food and income security risks for those dependent on wild meat for livelihoods (Ingram, 2020), disproportionately impacting the poorest households whose reliance on the resource is greatest (Nielsen et al., 2018). Despite the clear need to manage unsustainable wild meat harvesting to protect wildlife and the ecosystems they live in, management is poor in many areas, and in others, absent (Ingram et al., 2021; Wicander & Coad, 2018).Output Status: Forthcoming/Available Onlin

Predictors of frequency and success of wild meat hunting trips and carcass prices in an African biodiversity hotspot

Hunting wild animals for food and income, which is pervasive across tropical regions, drives biodiversity loss. Interventions to promote sustainable wild meat harvesting require information on hunter behavior. Here we monitored the hunting activities of 33 hunters in SE Nigeria over three years (1,106 hunter-months) to identify correlates of (a) the probability of initiating a hunting trip on any given day; (b) trip success – whether an animal was caught, and if so, how many; and (c) carcass price. We found a higher probability of initiating a trip during periods with bright moon phases and in peak agriculture season. Hunters were more likely to catch at least one animal when there was less rainfall and on shorter hunting trips. However, among successful trips, the number of animals caught increased with trip duration. Taken together, these results suggest hunters set themselves a minimum target of not returning empty-handed rather than optimally adjusting their hunting effort. Lastly, the carcass price per kilogram of a species’ meat increased with its palatability but decreased with mass, with the fall in price observed to be greater for rarely caught, smaller-bodied animals than more frequently caught animals. Our results provide deeper insights into the behavioral plasticity of wild meat hunters