Long-term monitoring of large rainforest mammals in the Biosphere Reserve of Taï National Park, Côte d’Ivoire

Long-term wildlife monitoring programs are typically listed as a fundamental component of protected area (PA) management. Unfortunately, few PAs have wildlife population monitoring information available over extended periods of time, particularly in the many forested PAs throughout tropical Africa. Taï National Park in south-western Côte d’Ivoire is one of these few. Regular wildlife monitoring based on transect dung count sampling and direct observations began as early as 1977 in five sections of the park. In this paper, we present comparative descriptive results from two periods, 1977–1983 and 1995–2004. Several large mammal species, such as forest elephants and bongos, have experienced dramatic population declines over this time period, with some decline rates as high as 91%. Other species, such as duikers and leopards, seem to have better resisted the primary cause of these observed declines, hunting. In addition, we found that day counts delivered mostly significantly lower density estimates for several of the monitored species than night counts, which shows the importance of carefully interpreting the estimates from other studies. The continuation of wildlife monitoring will provide further insight into the efficiency of implemented park management with regard to the observed population changes.