Rapid Coastal Survey in Norwegian Waters

European Marine Biological Symposium (EMBS 47), Arendal, 03.09.2012 - 07.09.201

Assessing Africa-wide pangolin exploitation by scaling local data

Overexploitation is one of the main pressures driving wildlife closer to extinction, yet broad-scale data to evaluate species’ declines are limited. Using African pangolins (Family: Pholidota) as a case study, we demonstrate that collating local-scale data can provide crucial information on regional trends in exploitation of threatened species to inform conservation actions and policy. We estimate that 0.4-2.7 million pangolins are hunted annually in Central African forests. The number of pangolins hunted has increased by ~150% and the proportion of pangolins of all vertebrates hunted increased from 0.04% to 1.83% over the past four decades. However, there were no trends in pangolins observed at markets, suggesting use of alternative supply chains. We found evidence that the price of giant (Smutsia gigantea) and arboreal (Phataginus sp.) pangolins in urban markets has increased, mirroring trends in Asian pangolins. Efforts and resources are needed to increase law enforcement and population monitoring, and investigate linkages between subsistence hunting and illegal wildlife trade

Assessing Africa-Wide Pangolin Exploitation by Scaling Local Data

Overexploitation is one of the main pressures driving wildlife closer to extinction, yet broad-scale data to evaluate species' declines are limited. Using African pangolins (Family: Pholidota) as a case study, we demonstrate that collating local-scale data can provide crucial information on regional trends in exploitation of threatened species to inform conservation actions and policy. We estimate that 0.4-2.7 million pangolins are hunted annually in Central African forests. The number of pangolins hunted has increased by ∼150% and the proportion of pangolins of all vertebrates hunted increased from 0.04% to 1.83% over the past four decades. However, there were no trends in pangolins observed at markets, suggesting use of alternative supply chains. The price of giant (Smutsia gigantea) and arboreal (Phataginus sp.) pangolins in urban markets has increased 5.8 and 2.3 times respectively, mirroring trends in Asian pangolins. Efforts and resources are needed to increase law enforcement and population monitoring, and investigate linkages between subsistence hunting and illegal wildlife trade

Bird tolerance to humans in open tropical ecosystems

AbstractAnimal tolerance towards humans can be a key factor facilitating wildlife–human coexistence, yet traits predicting its direction and magnitude across tropical animals are poorly known. Using 10,249 observations for 842 bird species inhabiting open tropical ecosystems in Africa, South America, and Australia, we find that avian tolerance towards humans was lower (i.e., escape distance was longer) in rural rather than urban populations and in populations exposed to lower human disturbance (measured as human footprint index). In addition, larger species and species with larger clutches and enhanced flight ability are less tolerant to human approaches and escape distances increase when birds were approached during the wet season compared to the dry season and from longer starting distances. Identification of key factors affecting animal tolerance towards humans across large spatial and taxonomic scales may help us to better understand and predict the patterns of species distributions in the Anthropocene.</jats:p

Bushmeat hunting in the western Serengeti: Implications for community-based conservation

Bushmeat hunting is identified as the major threat to wildlife in sub-Saharan Africa. The trade which includes both rural and urban dwellers is linked to deforestation, and especially the development of roads, which has increased human settlements and provided access to improved transport of animal products. Demand from a burgeoning human population is adding to the unsustainability of the activity. Many wildlife populations in East and Southern Africa have already experienced dramatic declines and range contractions because of illegal hunting. Conservation efforts have largely been directed along two approaches: establishing protected areas and including local people in the management of wildlife, while sharing wildlife related benefits. However, both strict protected areas, such as national parks, and partially protected areas have not by themselves been able to improve the situation. Moreover, laws and regulations, together with law enforcement have also been unsuccessful at reducing illegal activities. Community-based conservation (CBC) was introduced in recognition of the importance of including local people and partially and unprotected areas as part of wildlife management in the wider landscape context. This has been a widely adopted approach in East and Southern Africa, and Tanzania has also invested considerable efforts to use CBC and buffer zone areas (i.e. partially protected areas) in order to create incentives for conservation and for alleviating poverty. In the Serengeti ecosystem, illegal bushmeat hunting is identified as the top-most threat to wildlife populations. At the same time, local people bear substantial costs from having large wildlife as neighbours, which cause conflicts and resentment towards protected areas. In the mid 1980s the Tanzanian government established Serengeti Regional Conservation Project (SRCP) as one of the first CBCs in the country to tackle the problems experienced in the ecosystem, and in particular that of the western Serengeti, where encroachment and illegal hunting were most severe. However, despite its potential importance little information has been available for evaluating its effect. This thesis focuses on the performance of wildlife conservation efforts in partially protected areas by using the western section of the Serengeti ecosystem in Tanzania as a case study. The thesis first explores some of the costs and benefits for local people that are associated with wildlife, and the effects of human disturbance onwildlife, then it evaluates some of the efforts implemented to include local people in conservation and to curb illegal activities. The conflict between large predators and people epitomises the struggle of conservation. Local people in the western Serengeti suffer high costs due to livestock loss from large predators and this effect extends relatively far into human settled areas. Not surprisingly, retaliatory killing is widely accepted. Education seemed to reduce the acceptance of killing, and for livestock keepers the perceived effectiveness of livestock protection measures, as well as the number of livestock loss influenced attitudes. Thus, in order to reduce the effect of retaliatory killings on predator populations in the Serengeti, it is vital to improve protection measures for livestock and offer local people improved education, which will also provide them easier access to alternative livelihoods. In accordance with previous studies, illegal bushmeat hunting was widespread in the area outside the Serengeti National Park, both from SRCP and non-project villages. There was also a temporal variation in hunting efforts which increased when the wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus) migration travelled through the area. The majority of the harvest was represented by migratory herbivores, but also resident herbivores were targeted. Males were exposed to a higher risk of being killed, probably due to behavioural differences between the sexes, rather than as a result of the hunter’s prey choice. The main reason for hunting was subsistence, although some also had commercial motives. Illegal bushmeat hunting reduced impala (Aepyceros melampus) density, especially in the partially protected areas, as well as probably causing a more female biased sex ratio. In addition, animals became more wary in the areas under high hunting pressure, which indicates that demography and behaviour can be used as indicators of human exploitation. Animals, like Thomson’s gazelle (Gazella thomsoni), appeared not to monitor the expected time a predator would take to reach their location, but instead relied only on distance as a cue to assess when to flee. The game cropping operation (the commercial utilisation of wild animal populations in natural habitats) of SRCP was economically unsustainable. The expected revenue per villager from the cropping program was low compared to the value of the potential income enerated by illegal bushmeat hunting. In addition, the degree of participation in wildlife management was also restricted. One underlying condition for conservation to take place when including local people in benefit sharing, is that communities must be able to reduce threats to biodiversity themselves – that is they must have some control over the area, and can enforce policies to reduce threats through their own activities. Local law enforcement in the project villages showed substantial efforts in curbing illegal activities inside their patrol areas. However, project villages that derived higher benefit levels were more zealous in executing their authority. District level units had a low influence on the probability of making arrests, which suggests that measures must be taken to increase the resources available for enforcement, as well as increasing collaboration, in order to reduce illegal activities.Paper I and III copyright Elsevier, sciencedirect.com Paper V copyright Cambridge University Press, Fauna & Flora Internationa

Intraspecific prey choice of bushmeat hunters outside the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania: a preliminary analysis

In this study we investigated intraspecific prey choice of illegal bushmeat hunters outside the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. During the study 151 animals belonging to 12 species were reported killed. The majority, 76%, of prey species were migratory herbivores. Night hunting with dogs was the most common hunting method for medium-sized prey (biomass ≤40 kg), while the majority of the large herbivores were killed by snares. When actively stalking, hunters killed more males of most of the species recorded, as well as more immatures than adults. Passive hunting also generally had a male-bias. This suggests that the male-bias in kills probably is more a result of behavioural factors among the animals, combined with poor hunting technology, than deliberate choice of the hunters.Keywords: bushmeat, hunting, conservation, Serengeti, sex ratio, Tanzani

Behavioural and demographic changes in impala populations after 15 years of improved conservation management

Many protected areas (PAs) have been created globally in response to the dramatic human- induced decline in biodiversity. However, not all PAs successfully preserve their biodiversity and continued monitoring is vital to assess the effectiveness of conservation efforts. Here, we repeated a study done in 2003 to assess whether investments in anti-poaching in two par-tially PAs (PPAs), Grumeti Game Reserve (GGR) and Ikona Wildlife Management Area (IWMA), have had quantifiable impacts on impala (Aepyceros melampus) populations, com-pared to the adjacent strictly protected Serengeti National Park. Since 2003, management of the PPAs has changed dramatically under the non-profit organisation Grumeti Fund. We predicted that if conservation management had improved, impala populations in 2018 would have higher local density, less female-skewed sex ratio, larger group sizes, and shorter flight initiation distances (FID). To assess these parameters of the impala populations, we con-ducted the same road-based surveys in 2003 and 2018. We found that compared to 2003, impala population density doubled in GGR, group sizes were larger in IWMA and nearly doubled in GGR, and that impala had shorter FID in IWMA in 2018. Our results suggest that the changes in conservation management could have led to the observed positive impacts for impala populations. Our study is encouraging for managers and reveals a conservation success story: if proper action is taken to increase the protection of wildlife within PPAs, wildlife populations may respond quickly and positively.publishedVersio

Systematic survey of the design, statistical analysis, and reporting of studies published in the 2008 volume of the

Translating experimental findings into clinically effective therapies is one of the major bottlenecks of modern medicine. As this has been particularly true for cerebrovascular research, attention has turned to the quality and validity of experimental cerebrovascular studies. We set out to assess the study design, statistical analyses, and reporting of cerebrovascular research. We assessed all original articles published in the Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism during the year 2008 against a checklist designed to capture the key attributes relating to study design, statistical analyses, and reporting. A total of 156 original publications were included (animal, in vitro, human). Few studies reported a primary research hypothesis, statement of purpose, or measures to safeguard internal validity (such as randomization, blinding, exclusion or inclusion criteria). Many studies lacked sufficient information regarding methods and results to form a reasonable judgment about their validity. In nearly 20 % of studies, statistical tests were either not appropriate or information to allow assessment of appropriateness was lacking. This study identifies a number of factors that should be addressed if the quality of research in basic and translational biomedicine is to be improved. We support the widespread implementation of the ARRIVE (Animal Research Reporting In Vivo Experiments) statement for the reporting of experimental studies in biomedicine

Human habituation reduces hyrax flight initiation distance in Serengeti

Many animal populations are exposed to disturbance originating from human activities. In response to human disturbance, certain animals display a variety of potentially costly behavioural responses, such as increased antipredator behaviour or relocation to new areas. In contrast, other animals seemingly thrive in the presence of humans and benefit from human‐derived resources. Flight initiation distance (FID: the distance between predator and prey when prey starts to flee) is a measure commonly used to assess animals’ tolerance to humans. In this study, we tested how FID changes in relation to human presence in two hyrax species in Serengeti National Park. Hyraxes living on kopjes (rock outcrops) among human settlements showed a significantly shorter FID than hyraxes living on kopjes without human settlements. In addition, we found that hyraxes feeding before the experiment had shorter FID than hyraxes resting or being vigilant, and hyraxes disturbed during the early morning had shorter FID than hyraxes disturbed during late morning. We did not find any significant effects of group size or species composition on FID. Our results suggest that hyraxes living in the presence of humans are habituated and are not adversely affected by human settlements