CERCOPAN

Category: Cercopan, Communities, Conservation, Monkeys, Nigeria, Rain Forests, Uncategorized | Date: Mar 04 2008 | By: admin

Whenever I try to explain my address to one of the many bike taxi’s in Calabar, I simply have to say “Dat monkey place” and the driver immediately knows exactly where to take me. In the local area we are definitely best known for our monkey rehabilitation and education work, but people are less aware that we also protect prime rainforest habitat. Protecting rainforest in Cross River is vital, not only to preserve the immense biodiversity of the region, but also to safeguard the livelihoods of human populations.

View from CERCOPAN tree platform over the Iko Esai Community forest

In communities such as Iko Esai, that are heavily dependent on the forest for survival, conversion can have devastating consequences, particularly for the poorest families. As such residents are working with CERCOPAN to develop and implement a Land Use Management Plan (LUMP) to conserve their forest for both immediate use and the benefit of future generations. The 12,000 hectare forest area is home to elephant, red river hog, drill monkeys, bushbabies, guenons, buffalo and Situnga among many other species both large and small. In fact, only a few weeks ago I almost tripped over a Pangolin whilst using the light from a mobile phone to sleepily navigate my way to the camp toilet!

Aerial photgraph of Iko Esai protected zones, Cross River National Park and surrounding areas

The Iko Esai Land Use Management Plan includes 4 zones; a core area (400ha), research area (2600ha), conservation area (12,000ha) and a sustainable management (for local timber extraction)/farming zone (approximately 8000ha). Whilst non timber forest products such as bush mango and snails can be collected in the research and conservation areas, all forms of exploitation in the core area are prohibited. This policy is upheld by Esira, Igwe, Obun and Gabriel, who patrol the area on a shift basis, 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Each member of the patrol team was once an Iko Esai hunter who has been re-trained by CERCOPAN to protect the very species that he once sought to kill.

Patrol members Esira and Igwe

It is very rare that hunters enter the core area, but even if they simply pass through, the chiefs council takes the matter very seriously. In fact, the last person caught walking within the core at night was fined two bunches of plantain, one crate of beer, two bottles of local gin and a goat! The monkey hunting ban is taken even more seriously as you can hear from the clipping from a speech made by the traditional ruler of Iko Esai that I have included below. Thankfully, not a single person has been found hunting or in possession of a dead monkey since the onset of the ban in 2006.

chief-owai.mov
Excerpt from a speech made by Chief Owai regarding the killing of monkeys

Signs placed around the boundaries of the core area (the reverse reads “By order of Iko Esai”)

In the future, we hope to develop similar agreements with the communities immediately neighbouring Iko Esai. This move would offer the potential to protect over 40,000 ha of habitat bordering the entire western flank of the Cross River National park. The National Park is home to over 199 species, including Leopard, Chimpanzee and the most endangered of all African primates; the Cross River Gorilla. By providing a buffer to the park we would effectively help to protect all of these species and to maintain the integrity of this globally important conservation area.

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Category: Cercopan, Conservation, Monkeys, Nigeria, Rain Forests, Uncategorized | Date: Mar 02 2008 | By: admin

Here is a blog written by Sagan Friant, a volunteer working on Mangabey research at Rhoko camp.

At day break I grab a quick cup of instant coffee and make my way downhill from camp and soon begin to hear the loud whoop-gobble call the adult male mangabeys use to announce their territory. The red-capped mangabeys (Cercocebus torquatus torquatus) at Rhoko live in a 1 hectare enclosure within the forest and are all considered potential future release candidates. Back in 2003, 18 animals (3 adult males, 2 adolescent males, 7 females, 5 juveniles, 1 infant) were selected to be moved to the enclosure, on the basis of history, behaviour and health screening all conducted at CERCOPAN headquarters. Since I completed my masters research here in the summer of 2007, the mangabey population has experienced 9 births and the population has now reached 40 individuals!

Sagan studying the Mangabeys

Though they are provisioned, it only takes a few hours within the enclosure to realize how close to being wild these monkeys have become. The mangabeys are true opportunistic ominivores. In just a week, I have witnessed them feeding on a wide diversity of foods found within the enclosure. Along with the typical leaves and fruits, we have observed mangabeys digging for roots of plants and biting bark off the sides of certain trees. Many of the plants within the enclosure have local medicinal uses, which may be exploited by the mangabeys. Eno, one of the keepers directed me to a tree which the mangabeys were feeding on called ‘debrabure’, and explained that it is used in the village to increase fertility. Perhaps this explains the booming population! The mangabeys do not stop with plant matter however, as we have also observed them digging for ants, pounding termite nests in an attempt to break them open, and discovering and consuming lizard eggs.

When they are not foraging, these incredibly social monkeys spend much of the day grooming and playing. Over fifty percent of the population is juvenile, and these youngsters frequently wreak havoc throughout the enclosure chasing one another from tree to tree and swinging on lianas. Such roguish behaviors are not limited solely to the younger generations however, as adult and sub-adult males are quite active in their continuous attempts to maintain or improve their position within the hierarchy.

Young Mangabeys playing in the trees

Akposi, a research assistant from Iko Esai, has been observing this population since they arrived to the enclosure in 2004. He knows the mangabeys very well, and has been helping me to recognize all forty individuals- no easy task! Together, we hope to use the past years of observations to learn more about the behavioral ecology of the red-capped mangabey, a species which has been under-studied relative to other primate taxa. Additionally, at CERCOPAN we hope to identify which animals (as an individual and a group) are most suited for release back into the wild. Prime candidates will be those that exhibit the most ‘natural’ behaviors and whose family is well represented within the Rhoko group. Once selected, the proposed animals will require further veterinary screening, and with governmental and local permissions and adequate protection, we hope that these mangabeys can then become wild. Ultimately, we hope that the local forest will be home to completely free-ranging mangabeys that can be studied long term within their natural habitat.

Akposi recording data on Mangabey behaviour

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