Wildlife - GCF Resource Library

Variation of tsetse fly abundance in relation to habitat and host presence in the Maasai Steppe, Tanzania

Human activities modify ecosystem structure and function and can also alter the vital rates of vectors and thus the risk of infection with vector-borne diseases. In the Maasai Steppe ecosystem of northern Tanzania, local communities depend on livestock and suitable pasture that is shared with wildlife, which can increase tsetse abundance and the risk of trypanosomiasis. We monitored the monthly tsetse fly abundance adjacent to Tarangire National Park in 2014-2015 using geo-referenced, baited epsilon traps. We examined the effect of

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Wildlife Resources of Ethiopia: Opportunities, Challenges and Future Directions: From Ecotourism Perspective: A Review Paper

The economy of Ethiopia has prospered for many years on agricultural products but currently, the country expands to industrialization and service providing for additional incomes. However, the wildlife tourism and conservation practices are still at low attention. Therefore, this review paper identifies potential opportunities and wildlife diversity to promote wildlife tourism practices in Ethiopia. Furthermore, it also identifies the challenges and future directions to put into practice for future wildlife tourism industry. Wildlife tourism is one of the best potential

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Between overstocking and extinction: conservation and the intensification of uneven wildlife geographies in Africa

Conservation news from Africa generally seems to exude crisis. Over the last decade, especially, we have witnessed the increasingly visible decline of charismatic species such as the rhino, elephant, cheetah, lion, giraffe and others, coupled with an ongoing defaunation of many forested areas. What is much less visible is that in certain areas an important countertrend is also occurring: the growth of wildlife species, most notably through the stocking of private lands and initiatives to develop broader wildlife economies. This

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Community Attitudes and Knowledge on Conservation of Rothschild’s Giraffes in Ruma National Park and Mwea National Reserve in Kenya

The attitude and conservation knowledge of Rothschild’s giraffe ecosystems by host communities is critical in sustainability of parks and reserves in Kenya. This study was conducted in two different giraffe habitats, namely Ruma National Park and Mwea National Reserve in Kenya. The objective of the study was to assess the attitudes and wildlife conservation knowledge of the local community towards the adjacent protected area. A descriptive research design that involved administering of closed ended questionnaires in the survey was used

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Behavioural responses of cattle to shared foraging with wild herbivores in an East African rangeland

We assessed whether prior foraging by wild herbivores affected foraging behaviour of cattle in Laikipia rangeland, Kenya, during February 2001, August 2001 and February 2002. The study compared cattle bite rate, step rate and bites per step in plots exclusively accessible to cattle and those accessible to cattle and large wild herbivores. During February 2001 when conditions were dry, cattle bite rate was 18–19% lower, step rate 25–26% higher, and bites per step 36% lower in plots shared by cattle

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Water sources aggregate parasites, with increasing effects in more arid conditions

Shifts in landscape heterogeneity and climate can influence animal behavior and movement in ways that profoundly alter disease transmission. Amid accelerating climate and land use changes, it is increasingly important to identify and monitor hotspots of increased animal activity and overlap where disease transmission is likely to occur. Water sources that are foci of animal activity have great potential to promote disease transmission, but there has been very little work to quantify this, nor any comparison across a range of

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The changing role of natural and human agencies shaping the ecology of an African savanna ecosystem

Reconstructing the historical interplay of wildlife and pastoralists in the African savannas is clouded in contemporary studies by the transformation of subsistence societies and land use changes. We draw on five decades of monitoring by the Amboseli Conservation Program to illustrate the rainfall–-plant–herbivore linkages in a free-ranging wildlife–livestock system transitioning to contemporary savanna landscapes. In half a century, the coupled interactions of wildlife and livestock in the Amboseli ecosystem driven by rainfall and water sources have been severed and reshaped

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Comparing an automated high-definition oblique camera system to rearseat-observers in a wildlife survey in Tsavo, Kenya: Taking multi-species aerial counts to the next level

In aerial wildlife counts, human observers often fail to detect animals. We conducted a multi-species sample count in Tsavo National Park, Kenya, with traditional rear-seat-observers (RSOs) and an automated ‘oblique-camera-count’ (OCC) imaging system to compare estimates of 23 wildlife species derived from these two survey methods. An aerial Total Count of elephant, buffalo and giraffe, conducted a month previously, provided a further comparison. In the Tsavo Core (9560 km2), which harbours 80% of Tsavo’s elephants, the OCC system acquired 81

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Comparison of comprehensive health score in North American housed giraffe and free-ranging giraffe from South Africa

As in humans, stress is evident in many animal species and has been correlated to disease prevalence; yet a value for reliable quantification of chronic stress is unestablished. During stressful events, allostasis, an adaptive process, is initiated by physiologic systems to maintain or reestablish homeostasis to protect an organism’s viability. Over time, the acclimation to frequent stress causes systematic dysregulation, leading to the phenomena of increased allostatic load. In recent studies, allostatic load has been assessed in animal species via

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The status of wildlife in protected areas compared to non-protected areas of Kenya

We compile over 270 wildlife counts of Kenya’s wildlife populations conducted over the last 30 years to compare trends in national parks and reserves with adjacent ecosystems and country-wide trends. The study shows the importance of discriminating human-induced changes from natural population oscillations related to rainfall and ecological factors. National park and reserve populations have declines sharply over the last 30 years, at a rate similar to non-protected areas and country-wide trends. The protected area losses reflect in part their

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