Title
Grauer’s Gorilla Numbers Increasing in Kahuzi-Biega National Park Highlands: 2015 Census in Tshivanga Sector (Unpublished report by the Wildlife Conservation Society)
Author(s)
Spira, C.;Mitamba, G.;Kirkby, A.;Kalikunguba, T.;Nishuli, R. ;Plumptre, A.
Published
2016
Abstract
Kahuzi-Biega National Park (KBNP), located in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), is the most important protected area for the conservation of the endemic Grauer’s gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri), having been identified in 1994-95 as protecting about 86% of the global population together with the adjacent Kasese region of forest. With the onset of civil war in 1996, the Congolese wildlife authority, the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN), lost control of the park as armed groups settled within its boundaries. While the park is already located in one of the most densely populated region on the continent, this exacerbated natural resource extraction from within the park, including hunting of wildlife for subsistence and trade. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) conducts gorilla censuses with the ICCN in the high altitude sector of KBNP every 5 years to monitor changes in the gorilla population to adapt conservation efforts and evaluate their impacts in this sector of the park. In December 2015, WCS and ICCN survey teams used reconnaissance walks to survey 500 x 500 m blocks of forest. When a fresh gorilla nest site was encountered (1-5 days old) its GPS coordinates were recorded and the trail made by the gorilla group was followed until the previous nest site was found. At each nest site, nests were counted and dung size measurements taken to establish the age-sex composition of the group.
https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.31298.84164
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