A forest lake in northern Republic of Congo: a window on forest elephant conservation

Citation

Maisels F, Ekoutouba D, Abeguo R, Mboulafini M, Mahmadu M & Mobolombi G (2002) A forest lake in northern Republic of Congo: a window on forest elephant conservation. British Ecological Society/ Society for Conservation Biology Conference 2002, Canterbury, UK.

Abstract
A small lake, 3km from a village, and 20km from Nouabale-Ndoki National Park was heavily hunted for elephants and other animals in the 1970s and 1980s. At that time, elephants strongly avoided the village and its fields. Since the early 1990s, an agreement between the village and the Nouabale-Ndoki conservation project prevents both general hunting at the lake and elephant poaching in the area. During 2000 and 2001 we monitored large mammal use of the lake. Observations (748 hours over 200 days) were made from a hide twice a week and animal sign on the lakeshore was recorded weekly. Forest buffalo, forest elephant, black and white colobus and bongo antelope visited to feed on aquatic Spirogyra algae. Twelve different male elephants used the lake, mostly only in the mid- to late afternoon and at night. Since 1998, several of these same individual elephants have been coming into the village, crop-raiding, and they show no fear of humans at all. Conservation has thus resulted in a complete change in elephant behaviour near this village, as they perceive that it is a safe site. However, it has also resulted in a crop-raiding problem, for which the project is now trying to solve.