A Report from Nigeria
Nigeria's gorillas are the most northerly and westerly in Africa, occurring in four small populations close to the Cameroon border in Cross River State. I visited Cross River State in January 1998 and investigated some of the gorilla research and conservation efforts in progress. I am happy to be able to report that, although the Nigerian gorillas are still in a precarious position, they are hanging on; studies are in progress (or have recently been completed) on the three main populations, and hunting pressures appear to have eased. The three main populations are in the Afi River Forest Reserve, the Mbe Mountains, and the Boshi Extension area of the Cross River National Park (CRNP); the fourth population occurs in the Okwangwo part of the CRNP, adjacent to Cameroon's Takamanda Forest Reserve.
Afi Mountains
Because of the rugged terrain in the hilly country where these gorillas
live, and because they are shy as a result of a long history of hunting,
it has been difficult to make robust estimates of the number of gorillas
surviving in Nigeria. However, the tentative conclusion of surveys in
1987-1988 and in 1990 was that the largest remaining population lived
in the mountains in the northwestern part of the Afi River Forest Reserve,
where perhaps 40-50 gorillas survived. City University of New York graduate
student Kelley McFarland conducted a pilot study of the Afi gorillas in
1993. She found many gorilla signs, but she also learned of the recent
killing of several gorillas. In March 1996 she returned to the Afi Mountains
to begin a thorough ecological study of this population, working under
the auspices of the Cross River State Forestry Department and supported
by the L. S. B. Leakey Foundation, Primate Conservation
Inc. and the Wildlife Conservation Society. Kelley McFarland established
a base camp in the mountains above the town of Buanchor and, with a team
of local assistants, began cutting survey lines up and down the precipitous
Afi slopes. The study was interrupted at the end of 1996, but resumed
again in October 1997 and soon after this McFarland and her team began
to find many sleeping nests and feeding sites.
Surveys over the whole Afi mountain area are suggesting that this population
may be divided into three more-or-less isolated units, and Kelley McFarland
is finding that nest clusters in Afi vary greatly in size, lending weight
to the hypothesis that gorillas in Nigeria have flexible grouping patterns.
The largest nest cluster found so far contained 38 nests, strongly suggesting
that there are more than 40 individuals in the Afi mountains as a whole.
In addition to censusing the population and studying patterns of habitat
use, McFarland is collecting fecal samples from which to analyze diet.
The northerly position of the Nigerian gorillas means that they inhabit
a strongly seasonal environment and this is expected to be reflected in
the animals' diet. Hair samples from nests are also being collected for
genetic analysis by Jean Wickings in Gabon.
Prior to the start of McFarland's study, Peter Jenkins and Liza Gadsby
of the Pandrillus drill rehabilitation programme in Calabar, Cross
River State, had worked with the Forestry Department and villages around
the Afi mountains to establish a ranger program, under which local men
(particularly former hunters) were recruited to enforce a hunting ban.
Although this program has been temporarily suspended, McFarland's field
team is presently acting as an informal protection force and McFarland
reports finding no evidence of a gorilla having been killed in the mountains
since 1993. Other species, including drills and chimpanzees, continue
to be hunted, however, and the low-lying parts of the Afi River Forest
Reserve are coming under increasing pressure from loggers. Farms continue
to extend into the reserve, while fires started in the course of clearing
farms have in recent years badly damaged parts of the forest, including
the gorilla habitat. The Cross River Forestry Department is considering
a proposal to create a Wildlife Sanctuary in the Afi mountains and McFarland's
findings should contribute information for the planning of that sanctuary.
At this point, however, there is no guarantee that the gorillas and their
habitat will be protected after McFarland's field work ends in mid-1999.
Mbe Mountains
Iin 1989 WWF-UK had initiated a project in collaboration with the governments
of Cross River State and the Federal Republic of Nigeria to establish
a National Park in State and the Federal Republic of Nigeria to establish
a National Park in the former Boshi-Okwangwo Forest Reserves and adjacent
areas. One of these adjacent areas is the Mbe mountains, about 12 km southwest
of Afi, where the Nigerian Conservation Foundation started a project in
1988 to study and protect what is probably Nigeria's second largest Nigerian
gorilla population. The Boshi-Okwangwo Forest Reserve became the Okwangwo
Division of the Cross River National Park (CRNP) in October 1991, but
the Mbe mountains were excluded from the park despite planners' recommendations.
However, park officials still expect that Mbe will eventually be incorporated
into the park, and in December 1995 the WWF-CRNP Okwangwo programme initiated
a one-year survey of the gorillas in these mountains. This survey was
led by Ernest Nwufoh, whose team spent 309 days in the field in 1995-1996,
censusing nest sites along transect lines in a continuous rotation. Further
sampling was done by Gabriel Ogar in March-April 1997. I saw Nwufoh's
report during my January 1998 visit and discussed his findings with him.
I learned that he had estimated a population of 24-32 gorillas in Mbe.
This is similar to an estimate I made after surveys of the Mbe mountains
in 1990. Nwufoh's team found that farmlands were continuing to encroach
on the Mbe forest and that the area being used by the gorillas is probably
less than 40 km², smaller than the area estimated in earlier surveys.
On the other hand, there is no strong evidence that any gorillas have
been killed by hunters in the Mbe mountains since 1991.
Cross River National Park
Compared with the gorillas in the Afi and Mbe mountains, those within
the Cross River National Park itself have been relatively neglected. There
are two distinct populations in the park. These populations were probably
in contact in the past but are almost certainly isolated from each other
today. One occurs at the northern end of the park in the forests of the
former Boshi Extension Forest Reserve, a reserve originally established
as a gorilla sanctuary in 1958. The other is found in the southwestern
part of the former Okwangwo Forest Reserve, immediately adjacent to Cameroon's
Takamanda Forest Reserve; these Okwangwo and Takamanda gorillas are probably
a single population unit.
In early December 1997, Ernest Nwufoh initiated transect surveys of gorilla
nests in the Boshi Extension forest and in January 1998 I was able to
spend 6 days in this area with him and part of his team. We divided ourselves
into two small groups and surveyed parts of the upper Mache and Asache
valleys, where the gorillas seem to be concentrated. Although we found
several old nest clusters we were not able to locate any fresh gorilla
signs. It was the dry season, and, according to hunters, gorillas at this
time move into the lowest and most inaccessible parts of the valleys.
The low density of nest sites that all researchers have found in Boshi
Extension (relative to the numbers found at Mbe and Afi) strongly suggests
that there are very few gorilla groups in this area. In 1990 we estimated
a total population here of about 20 individuals in 60 km²; my impression
is that the population is still close to that size, and therefore in a
perilous position. I was given a report that one gorilla was killed in
Boshi Extension early in 1996, but I did not learn of any having been
killed since then. However, hunting and trapping of other wildlife continues
at a high intensity in most parts of the national park, and park managers
have tended to give more attention to issues of rural development than
to the rigorous control of poaching.
Although hunting is a problem in Boshi Extension, the forest here is largely
intact. Growing on very steep slopes, it is not threatened at present
by loggers or farmers but it has suffered fire damage on its extreme northern
edge where the forest meets the grasslands of the Obudu Plateau.
These grasslands have come under increasing use by Fulani cattle herders
who burn the grass in the dry season. Gorillas once visited the montane
forest patches on this high plateau (1,500-1,700 m), but these forests
have been badly damaged by farming and fire and the gorillas have not
been seen on the plateau for some years. An NGO, Development in Nigeria,
has begun a project to stabilize and promote regeneration of the plateau
forests, so it is not impossible that the gorillas could one day return
to the plateau. Here, they would be within easy reach of a tourist hotel
located at the headquarters of the moribund Obudu Cattle Ranching Company.
Takamanda, Cameroon
The gorillas in the southwestern part of the former Okwangwo Forest Reserve
have not been the subject of special study, but brief surveys in that
area have found only a small number of nest sites. It is likely that the
gorilla population in this area is centred in the Takamanda Forest Reserve,
and that Okwangwo is a peripheral part of the population's range.
In early 1996, Jacqui Groves of the Limbe, Cameroon branch of the Pandrillus
project made a brief visit to Takamanda and obtained reports about the
continued presence of gorillas. This led to a plan for a more thorough
survey, funded by WWF-Cameroon, which Groves began in late 1997.
The numbers of gorillas in the Takamanda-Okwangwo population are unknown,
but it seems unlikely that this population exceeds 100 and it could be
much smaller. Hunting of the Takamanda gorillas may have continued until
quite recently; in Nigeria I received a report of one killed there in
September 1996.
Future Prospects
It is encouraging that all four of the small gorilla populations in the Nigeria-Cameroon border region are now getting some attention. At least the Nigeria-Cameroon border region are now getting some attention. At least in Nigeria this outside interest seems to have played an important role in reducing the hunting of gorillas, which was the most immediate threat to their survival. But the gorillas remain in a precarious situation, given that each population unit is so tiny, that their habitats are still being eroded at their margins, and that there is as yet no effective plan in place to combat hunting on a long-term basis. Continued attention must therefore be given to each population, with efforts being made both to better understand their status and ecology, and to establish sound and durable protection schemes. The atmosphere for establishing such protection seems to be improving. During meetings I had with Clement Ebin, the General Manager of the Cross River National Park, and with John Barker, the Manager of the WWF-CRNP Okwangwo Programme, these officials both acknowledged that the emphasis given by the park management project to community development projects had not resulted in effective wildlife protection, and that more rigorous efforts would have to be made in future to control trapping and hunting in the park. Ebin expressed an interest in finding modest outside support to improve the equipment and support facilities for park rangers and I have therefore begun exploring ways of obtaining this support and maintaining it over the long term.
John Oates
Prof. John F. Oates is a member of the Conservation Committee of the ISP (International Primatological Society) and of the Steering Committee of the IUCN Primate Specialist Group. He has been studying the ecology of tropical forest primates since 1964.
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Kelley McFarland and her assistant looking for gorilla traces on the Afi Mountains |
| Photo: John Oates |
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| One of the first gorilla photos from the Cross River region. Kelley McFarland took it in the Afi Mountains. |  |
| Photo: Kelley McFarland |