Exploring the Knowledge and Perceptions of Local Communities on Illegal Hunting: Long-Term Trends in a West African Protected Area

Local communities in rural areas are dependent on hunting for their livelihoods and rely on their knowledge to understand wildlife ecology. Their knowledge and perceptions may be vital for forming effective and sustainable management plans related to wildlife conservation. We aimed to examine perceptions of local people living inside (n = 153 households) and outside (n = 178 households) the Kogyae Strict Nature Reserve (KSNR, Ghana) regarding bushmeat prevalence and long-term trends in illegal hunting, and to explore people’s knowledge about hunting tools, species, and reasons to hunt illegally. Perceptions of bushmeat sightings and illegal hunting trends were influenced by living inside or outside the protected area, gender, and residence time. Residents living inside the reserve perceived bushmeat and hunting as frequently present in their environment mainly due to frequent sightings of bushmeat and other wildlife products, while people living adjacent to the KSNR were more knowledgeable about the decrease in illegal hunting trends, probably because of awareness about penalties and biodiversity conservation. Furthermore, the perceptions of most residents about the decrease in hunting over time were validated by long-term KSNR law enforcement data. The perception in local communities that snares were the commonest form of hunting equipment used was also consistent with the ranger-based monitoring data. The need for money, bushmeat, unemployment, and retaliatory killings were the main drivers for illegal hunting. Our findings indicated that local people’s knowledge can have a valid relevance in protected area management and may assist in developing effective conservation strategies and in overall improvement of local socio-ecological systems.

The SLOSS dilemma of road ecology: Are several small wildlife crossing structures better than a single large?

Crossing structures for large wildlife are increasingly being constructed at major roads and railways in many countries, and current guidelines for wildlife mitigation at linear infrastructures tend to advocate for large crossing structures sited at major movement corridors for the target species. The concept of movement corridors has however been challenged, and pinching animal movements into bottlenecks entail risks. In this paper, I address the SLOSS dilemma of road ecology, i.e., the discussion whether a Single Large Or Several Small crossing structures along a linear barrier would produce the most benefit for wildlife. I point out risks, ecological as well as practical, with investing in one large crossing structure, and list a number of situations where it may be more beneficial to distribute the conservation efforts in the landscape by constructing several smaller crossing structures; for example when the ecological knowledge is insufficient, when animal interactions are expected to be significant, when the landscape changes over time, or when future human development cannot be controlled. I argue that such situations are often what infrastructure planning faces, and that the default strategy therefore should be to distribute rather than to concentrate passage opportunities along major transport infrastructures. I suggest that distributing passage opportunities over several smaller crossing structures would convey a risk diversification, and that this strategy could facilitate the planning of wildlife mitigation. What to choose would however depend on, i.a., landscape composition and ecology, and on relationships among target species. A single large should be selected where it is likely that it can serve a large proportion of target animals, and where the long-term functionality of the crossing structure can be guaranteed. I illustrate how species and regional differences may influence the choice, using the case of ungulates in Sweden. New research is needed to support trade-offs between size and number of crossing structures. Cost-effectiveness analyses of wildlife crossing structures are currently rare and need to be further explored. Camera trapping and video surveillance of crossing structures provide opportunities to analyze details concerning, for example, any individual biases according to sex, age, status and grouping, and any antagonism between species and individuals. Wildlife ecology research need to better address questions posed by road and railway planning regarding the importance of specific movement routes and movement distances.

Animal-borne technologies in wildlife research and conservation

The use of animal-borne devices in wildlife ecology and conservation has expanded in recent decades. Animal-borne devices allow a suite of data to be collected, including locational, acoustic, and video. They have revolutionized our ability to collect measurements from animals and the environments that they inhabit, as well as promote the conservation of many species in their natural habitats. However, the use of these devices can also carry animal welfare, ethical, and privacy implications, device costs can limit the deployment of sufficient units, and the complexity of suitable analytical methods can limit inferences made. This chapter covers these topics by discussing how animal-borne devices, and particularly tracking technologies, are currently used in wildlife conservation and ecology. In particular, we discuss how and why animal-borne devices have advanced the study of wildlife, review key animal-borne devices in use today, and discuss the challenges and limitations of their use, as well as future opportunities, by drawing upon real-world examples from research and conservation.

CH4/CO2 Ratios and Carbon Isotope Enrichment Between Diet and Breath in Herbivorous Mammals

Breath and diet samples were collected from 29 taxa of animals at the Zurich and Basel Zoos to characterize the carbon isotope enrichment between breath and diet. Diet samples were measured for δ13C and breath samples for CH4/CO2 ratios and for the respired component of δ13C using the Keeling plot approach. Different digestive physiologies included coprophagous and non-coprophagous hindgut fermenters, and non-ruminant and ruminant foregut fermenters. Isotope enrichments from diet to breath were 0.8 ± 0.9‰, 3.5 ± 0.8‰, 2.3 ± 0.4‰, and 4.1 ± 1.0‰, respectively. CH4/CO2 ratios were strongly correlated with isotope enrichments for both hindgut and foregut digestive strategies, although CH4 production was not the sole reason for isotope enrichment. Average CH4/CO2 ratios per taxon ranged over several orders of magnitude from 10–5 to 10–1. The isotope enrichment values for diet-breath can be used to further estimate the isotope enrichment from diet-enamel because Passey et al. (2005b) found a nearly constant isotope enrichment for breath-enamel for diverse mammalian taxa. The understanding of isotope enrichment factors from diet to breath and diet to enamel will have important applications in the field of animal physiology, and possibly also for wildlife ecology and paleontology.

Comprehensive coverage of human last meal components revealed by a forensic DNA metabarcoding approach

Stomach content analyses are a valuable tool in human forensic science to interpret perimortem events. While the identification of food components of plant and animal origin has traditionally been conducted by macro- and microscopical approaches in case of incomplete digestion, molecular methods provide the potential to increase sensitivity and taxonomic resolution. In particular, DNA metabarcoding (PCR-amplification and next generation sequencing of complex DNA mixtures) has seen a rapid growth in the field of wildlife ecology to assess species’ diets from faecal and gastric samples. Despite clear advantages, molecular approaches have not yet been established in routine human forensics to investigate the last meal components of deceased persons. In this pilot study we applied for the first time a DNA metabarcoding approach to assess both plant and vertebrate components of 48 human stomach content samples taken during medicolegal autopsies. We obtained a final dataset with 34 vertebrate and 124 vegetal unique sequences, that were clustered to 9 and 33 operational taxonomic units (OTUs), respectively. Our results suggest that this approach can provide crucial information about circumstances preceding death, and open promising perspectives for biomedical dietary surveys based on digested food items found in the gastrointestinal tract.