Long-Term Monitoring of Hunting Signs Reveals Complex Spatiotemporal Patterns of Hunting Activities in an Unprotected African Rainforest

Abstract

Aim

The long-term survival of many mammal populations relies on how effectively we mitigate the threat from unsustainable hunting. Yet, hunting activities are often cryptic, especially in unprotected forests. Here, we investigate whether hunting signs can help understand the spatiotemporal dynamics of hunting activities in an unprotected African rainforest and examine how landscape characteristics predict various indicators of hunting.

Location

Ebo forest, Cameroon, Central Africa.

Methods

We recorded hunting signs (e.g., shotgun cartridges, wire snares, direct sightings) systematically on 23 parallel recce lines across the Ebo forest from 2008 to 2023. We assigned hunting data and spatial covariates (e.g., elevation, distance to village) to 1 × 1 km grid cells and applied generalised linear mixed models to predict the effects of these covariates on hunting.

Results

We found that hunting was commonplace across the entire Ebo forest. The best-fitting models for each hunting sign differed considerably. Shotgun cartridges and all hunting signs combined increased significantly from 2016 to 2023 and varied non-linearly along the village-distance gradient. We found a progressive inversion of hunting trends along the anthropogenic gradient; between 2016 and 2018, wire snares declined with the distance to road but from 2021, they increased along the road-distance gradient. Wire snares showed a similar pattern along the river-distance gradient. Our results also revealed differences between shotgun hunting and snaring along the altitudinal gradient; the effect of elevation was positive on shotgun cartridges and negative on wire snares. Hunting signs and trails decreased significantly with increasing terrain ruggedness.

Main Conclusions

Using long-term monitoring data, we show how hunting patterns change dynamically with respect to human and landscape-related features. We also demonstrate complex hunting patterns along the gradient of human influence, therefore questioning the use of proxies such as the distance to human settlements and even topography to account for hunting pressure. Overall, we show that hunting sign data can reveal the spatiotemporal patterns of hunting, crucial in evaluating the effectiveness of conservation interventions and guiding the prioritisation of limited conservation resources.