Discriminating between village and commercial hunting of apes. Kuehl, H. S., Nzeingui, C., Yeno, S. L. D., Huijbregts, B., Boesch, C., & Walsh, P. D. Biological Conservation, 142(7):1500 - 1506, 2009.
Discriminating between village and commercial hunting of apes [link]Paper  doi  abstract   bibtex   
Hunting is the major driver of large mammal decline in Central African forests. In slowly reproducing species even low hunting pressure leaves spatial gradients with wildlife density increasing with distance from transport routes and human settlements. Park management can use this pattern formation to identify sources of threats, but also to discriminate between different threat scenarios, such as the impact of subsistence vs. commercial hunting. We conducted an ape survey in the mountainous Moukalaba Doudou National Park, Gabon, to evaluate whether potential population gradients would emanate from the three human population centers in the region or the villages surrounding the park. Using generalized linear modeling we found hill slope as a good predictor of ape nest occurrence probability and the distance to human population centers a better predictor of ape nest density and ape nest group size than distance to villages. In fact ape nest density was three times lower at the park borders close to the human population centers than in the park's interior. The results indicate that Moukalaba's ape population is more impacted by commercial than subsistence hunting and suggest that park management should focus conservation efforts on the human population centers. We conclude that in particular for slowly reproducing species geographic information on wildlife population gradients are of additional value for guiding protected area management. The hunting impact on those species might be easily underestimated, if derived only from market surveys or transport route controls, where they are only rarely found.
@ARTICLE{Kuehl2009,
  author = {Hjalmar S. Kuehl and Christian Nzeingui and Stephane Le Duc Yeno
	and Bas Huijbregts and Christophe Boesch and Peter D. Walsh},
  title = {Discriminating between village and commercial hunting of apes},
  journal = {Biological Conservation},
  year = {2009},
  volume = {142},
  pages = {1500 - 1506},
  number = {7},
  abstract = {Hunting is the major driver of large mammal decline in Central African
	forests. In slowly reproducing species even low hunting pressure
	leaves spatial gradients with wildlife density increasing with distance
	from transport routes and human settlements. Park management can
	use this pattern formation to identify sources of threats, but also
	to discriminate between different threat scenarios, such as the impact
	of subsistence vs. commercial hunting. We conducted an ape survey
	in the mountainous Moukalaba Doudou National Park, Gabon, to evaluate
	whether potential population gradients would emanate from the three
	human population centers in the region or the villages surrounding
	the park. Using generalized linear modeling we found hill slope as
	a good predictor of ape nest occurrence probability and the distance
	to human population centers a better predictor of ape nest density
	and ape nest group size than distance to villages. In fact ape nest
	density was three times lower at the park borders close to the human
	population centers than in the park's interior. The results indicate
	that Moukalaba's ape population is more impacted by commercial than
	subsistence hunting and suggest that park management should focus
	conservation efforts on the human population centers. We conclude
	that in particular for slowly reproducing species geographic information
	on wildlife population gradients are of additional value for guiding
	protected area management. The hunting impact on those species might
	be easily underestimated, if derived only from market surveys or
	transport route controls, where they are only rarely found.},
  doi = {10.1016/j.biocon.2009.02.032},
  issn = {0006-3207},
  keywords = {Village, Human population center, Density, Park management, Population
	gradient, Survey },
  owner = {eric},
  subdatabase = {distance},
  timestamp = {2010.04.26},
  url = {http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/B6V5X-4VY16DW-1/2/2dcaeba08787e577c66101e04f5ff3f7}
}

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