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| Location
of Kakum National Park, Ghana. |
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Here,
ELP teams with Kakum’s Elephant Biology and
Management team to deploy Autonomous Recording Units
(ARUs) in the forest. More
about ARUs>> |
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Kakum
National Park in Ghana was chosen as a site for field testing
an acoustic monitoring system for forest elephants. It is
a small park (135 sq. miles) surrounded by agriculture,
containing a small population of forest elephants (roughly
250) rarely seen, but regularly monitored via dung counting.
In 2000, a field study was initiated in Kakum, with the
assistance of Dr. Richard Barnes, to estimate the size of
the population within the park using the relationships and
models established at Dzanga bai in Central African Republic.
Population estimates based on acoustic monitoring were within
the range of estimates based on both dung counting (Barnes
2000) and genetic analysis from dung (i.e., mark-recapture
DNA techniques; Eggert
et al. 2002). However, the precision provided by acoustic
monitoring was significantly improved. These results suggest
that acoustic monitoring can be used in place of dung counts
and other current monitoring techniques.
Kakum's Elephant Biology and
Management team
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| Analysis
of recordings revealed a distinct elephant calling
hot spot in the southeastern corner of the park, suggesting
that the Kakum elephants favor that area. This kind
of information is important to park managers and locals
whose crops are sometimes raided by these elephants. |
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| Local
paramount chiefs provide community support to the
monitoring effort. |
References
Barnes, R. F. W. 2000. Preliminary
report on estimates of elephant numbers from dung counts
in Kakum conservation area. Elephant Biology and Management
Project. Conservation International: 1-4.
Eggert, L.S., C.A. Rasner, and D.S. Woodruff. 2002. The
evolution and phylogeography of the African elephant inferred
from mitochondrial DNA sequence and nuclear microsatellite
markers. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London, Series
B - Biological Sciences 269(1504): 1993-2006.
Next>> |
