Human-chimpanzee co-existence in non-protected areas in sierra leone, west africa
- Autores: Rosa Garriga Anguera
- Directores de la Tesis: Ignacio Marco Sánchez (dir. tes.), Encarna Casas Díaz (codir. tes.), Tatyana Humle (codir. tes.)
- Lectura: En la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona ( España ) en 2018
- Idioma: español
- Tribunal Calificador de la Tesis: Jaime Martorell Monserrat (presid.), Miguel Ángel Llorente Espino (secret.), María Teresa Abello Poveda (voc.)
- Programa de doctorado: Programa de Doctorado en Medicina y Sanidad Animales por la Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona
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- Enlaces
- Resumen
Wild chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) populations are facing a serious risk of extinction and the main global threat is habitat conversion for subsistence and commercial agriculture. The western chimpanzee subspecies (Pan troglodytes verus) has been recently categorised as Critically Endangered by the IUCN red list because in the past 50 years its population has drastically reduced of more than 80% as a result of poaching, loss of habitat and habitat fragmentation due to human activities. Sierra Leone harbors the third largest western chimpanzee population but more than half of it lives in unprotected areas with a significant competition between people and chimpanzees for resources in areas dominated by farming activities where wild chimpanzees forage on crops. This thesis explores the agricultural challenges facing farmers and their attitudes and perceptions towards chimpanzees in four rural areas of Sierra Leone. Wildlife was reported to be the main agricultural problem although chimpanzees were not ranked within the 3 most destructive species. Chimpanzees consumed semi-domesticated oil palm resources and cultivated fruits, and this is negatively viewed by farmers. In general, farmers perceived chimpanzees more destructive than dangerous. Between April 2016 and May 2017, we conducted a camera trap survey in one of the rural areas previously surveyed with the aim to analyse the ecological and anthropogenic drivers of chimpanzee occurrence across a highly degraded and human-impacted landscape in the south-western district of Moyamba in Sierra Leone. The model showed that chimpanzee abundance across this landscape is affected by the distance to roads and proximity to swamps. However, settlements and human proximity did not influence in chimpanzee abundance. Farmers’ tolerance and low hunting pressure are argued to be some of the reasons chimpanzees still persist in these degraded landscapes. Finally, this study also provides a preliminary insight into the demographics, group structure and ranging of unhabituated chimpanzees living in a non-protected landscape. Overall, we expect that the results of this thesis will contribute to a better understanding of how chimpanzees live in degraded landscapes and its implications for conservation actions including land use planning.
