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Current Status of Wild Gorilla Populations and Strategies for Their Conservation

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Conservation in the 21st Century: Gorillas as a Case Study

Part of the book series: Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects ((DIPR))

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Notes

  1. 1.

    The Virunga Volcanoes region encompasses the Volcanoes National Park of Rwanda, the Mgahinga National Park of Uganda, and the Mikeno sector of the Virunga National Park, South Sector, Democratic Republic of Congo.

  2. 2.

    Before the advent of GIS techniques, quadrants were often created as 10 x 10 km grids (Tutin and Fernandez, 1984) producing an obvious advantage of using 100 km2 quadrants for calculations. However, today, these 100 km2 quadrants are less convenient to use in more modern GIS latitude and longitude projections and can result in miscalculations and distortions. For example, what appears to be an accidental assumption that one-tenth degree latitude by longitude was 100 km2 in size (Hart and Sikubwabo, 1994) produced significant map distortions and has rendered their previous quadrant analysis of gorilla and other faunal distributions quite difficult to use by current fieldworkers using GIS methods.

  3. 3.

    Sometimes abundance estimates for large areas are also generated by a “forest cover model” applying a density estimate to the amount of surface area still covered by primary forest as a proxy for occupancy range (Harcourt, 1966). For example, if we use Harcourt's model (overall gorilla density estimated to be 0.25 individuals/km2), the Minkebe forest block in northern Gabon (approximately 30,000 km2), would contain about 7,500 western lowland gorillas. However, we now know that the nest encounter rate at Minkebe has declined by about 98% (Walsh et al., 2003) since the Tutin and Fernandez (1984) survey (it was this survey that Harcourt used to calibrate density in his forest cover model). This kind of approach can thus generate enormous error (by a factor of about 20 times too high) and should be rejected as a reliable method for estimating abundance for large regions.

  4. 4.

    For a comprehensive review of all other minor surveys in East Africa until 2001, see Sarmiento (2003, Table 18.2).

  5. 5.

    ICCN is the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature, the DRC Wildlife Authority.

  6. 6.

    In Maiko, 51 quadrants (each at 100 km2) were surveyed, representing about half the Park's surface area. From these total quadrants, 17 were found to contain gorilla sign, and another seven were reported by locals to contain gorilla, but the survey teams were unable to find sign (Hart and Sikubwabo 1994). In the original report, the authors determine density to be 0.10 individuals/km2 (Hart and Sikubwabo, 1994); later, with the same data, density is reported to be 0.25 individuals/km2 (Hart and Hall, 1996). Applying these two densities as a range for the 17 quadrants, this would provide an abundance measure of 170–425 gorillas, or if the additional seven questionable quadrants are included, a range of 240–600 gorillas, neither of which approach the figure of 859 reported in Hall et al. (1998) or the range of 350–1,000 gorillas for Maiko reported in Hart and Hall (1996). Using the average of the two densities reported (0.17 individuals/km2), and applying it the 17 quadrants, this produces 289 weaned individuals, and adjusting this upward for unweaned and misidentified nests (using same calculations as in Hall et al, 1998b), the abundance number for Maiko would have been 395 gorillas. It is precisely these kind of estimations, already based on wide amounts of error inherent in transect methods (Table 1.2) that call into question the whole exercise of providing abundance estimates.

  7. 7.

    This census was carried out jointly in the Virunga Volcanoes Range by the Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN), the Office Rwandaise du Tourisme et Parcs Nationaux (ORTPN) and the Ugandan Wildlife Authority (UWA), with the support of the International Gorilla Conservation Programme (IGCP), Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International (DFGFI), Institute of Tropical Forest Conservation (ITFC), Max Plank Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology (MPIEA), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Europe (DFGFE), and Berggorilla & Regenwald Direkthilfe (BRD).

  8. 8.

    Deriving estimates of abundance by applying estimated densities to estimated range areas (Harcourt, 1966) should be viewed with a healthy skepticism. See note #3.

  9. 9.

    Deriving estimates of abundance by applying estimated densities to estimated range areas (Harcourt, 1966) should be viewed with a healthy skepticism. See note #3.

  10. 10.

    Calculated as a ratio of net change of total forest area (1990–2000) to extent of forest with <50% canopy cover (2000) for these countries (World Resources Institute, www.wri.org).

  11. 11.

    The WCS program in the area has also organized an endorsement of the Environment Ministers of Cameroon and Nigeria for Cross River gorilla conservation with a workshop in Limbe, 2003, and WCS continues to work closely with state and federal governments, local communities, other NGOs and international development agencies in Nigeria and Cameroon on behalf of the conservation of these gorillas (Oates, personal communication.). Also see WWF — World Wildlife Fund, WCS — Wildlife Conservation Society (http://www.panda.org/downloads/africa/apeupdateno1(english).pdf.

  12. 12.

    This needs to be quantified in future studies.

  13. 13.

    This needs to be quantified in future studies.

  14. 14.

    CARPE is an acronym for USAID's Central African Regional Program for the Environment; CBFP represents the Congo Basin Forest Partnership.

  15. 15.

    The Tayna Gorilla Reserve is a Nature Reserve created under the existing DRC Forestry Code (revised in August, 2002) and a Environment Ministerial Decree (#274); it is managed by two traditional communities, the Batangi and Bamate Nations, and has a 900 km2 integral zone that sanctions complete protection of all flora and fauna within its boundaries (also see Figure 1.8)

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Acknowledgments

The author would like to thank the efforts of Peter Walsh and John Oates, who through comprehensive and thorough reviews, substantially improved this chapter. Stuart Nixon, who with his wife, Francine Nixon, led the Maiko South Survey, also reviewed and improved this work. The author would also like to thank Tara Stoinski and Alexia Lewnes for review and commentary. Bradley Mulley kindly provided several of the maps in this work: Figures 1.1, 1.3, 1.4, and 1.8. A portion of the author's salary and all support for DFGFI fieldworkers and partners is provided by Conservation International, through USAID CARPE funding and through Conservation International's Global Conservation Fund. Further, the surveys described in this chapter, both in Maiko and in Tayna, were supported by funds from the USAID Gorilla Directive, Conservation International's Global Conservation Fund, and USAID CARPE funding from Conservation International, the Louisville Zoo, and the Thorne Foundation. This study would not have been possible without the support of the author's organization, the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International. The author also gratefully acknowledges the contributions of the field staff who contributed heavily to data presented in this chapter and are members of UGADEC, the Tayna Gorilla Reserve, and Maiko National Park, ICCN. The 21st century is theirs indeed.

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  1. Conservation International, 2011 Crystal Drive, Suite 500, Arlington, VA, 22202

    Patrick T. Mehlman

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  1. Patrick T. Mehlman
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  1. The Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    T. S. Stoinski , H. D. Steklis  & P. T. Mehlman ,  & 

  2. Zoo Atlanta, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

    T. S. Stoinski

  3. Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

    H. D. Steklis

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© 2008 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC

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Mehlman, P.T. (2008). Current Status of Wild Gorilla Populations and Strategies for Their Conservation. In: Stoinski, T.S., Steklis, H.D., Mehlman, P.T. (eds) Conservation in the 21st Century: Gorillas as a Case Study. Developments in Primatology: Progress and Prospects. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-70721-1_1

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