Photographic Evidence of Jentink's Duiker in the Gola Forest Reserves

Notes and records

Photographic evidence of Jentink’s duiker in the The Gola Forest Programme, a partnership between the Gola Forest Reserves, Sierra Leone Government of Sierra Leone, the Conservation Society of Sierra Leone and the Royal Society for the Protection of Jessica Ganas1,2* and Jeremy A. Lindsell1 Birds, is working to protect the forest and as part of the 1 Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, The Lodge, Sandy, research and monitoring programme, camera traps are 2 Beds, SG19 2DL, UK and Gola Forest Programme, 164 being used to document animal species found in the forest. Dama Road, Kenema, Sierra Leone We report here the ﬁrst photographic evidence of Jentink’s duiker in Sierra Leone.

Introduction Methods

The forest ungulate Jentink’s duiker (Thomas, 1892, The Gola Forest Reserves (710 km2) comprise four blocks Cephalophus jentinki), is endemic to the western portion of located in southeastern Sierra Leone. The reserves are the Upper Guinea forest region (Ivory Coast, Liberia and not contiguous, but are divided by the main Freetown- Sierra Leone) and is one of the rarest duikers in Africa Monrovia highway (between Gola West and East) and (Davies & Birkenha¨ger, 1990). The paucity of information areas of community land (between Gola East and North on the size of the population, the small extent of their and its extension). The reserves were subjected to com- range, and the seriousness of threats from habitat loss and mercial selective logging in the 1960s to 1980s with the hunting that they have faced in the last twenty years have latter period characterised by destructive and unsustain- led to their recent upgrading from vulnerable to endan- able offtake. Some parts of the forest, in particular in Gola gered by IUCN (2008). Their ecology is not well known but North, remained largely unlogged. they are thought to be mostly confined to remote primary The forest was divided into 5 · 5 km grid squares and a forests, although they may use secondary forests on a single camera was placed in a square. In all, ten cameras seasonal basis (Davies and Birkenhager, 1990; Newing, (Reconyx model Rapid Fire RM 45 digital) were deployed 2001). in Gola West in July 2008 and ten in Gola East in October Although Jentink’s duiker has been confirmed by direct 2008, resulting in ten squares being surveyed in each sightings in Liberia (http://www.edgeofexistence.org) and reserve. Cameras were sited next to a stream, river, trail or the Ivory Coast (Newing, 2001), only indirect evidence of other area likely to be frequented by animals, and were its existence has been documented in Sierra Leone (Davies operational for 4–6 weeks. All cameras were set to high and Birkenhager, 1990, Wilson & Wilson, 1990). All these trigger sensitivity, high picture quality, to take up to two reports pre-date the 10 years of civil war that Sierra Leone pictures per trigger and to wait 30 s before the next underwent from 1991 to 2001. During this time, the trigger. The RM 45 takes colour images in daylight and forests of southeast Sierra Leone were used extensively by infrared images when dark, lit with an infrared flash, as it rebels (Richards, 2005) and since then activities such as has no white flash. mining, slash and burn farming, and illegal logging have recommenced. Given the very limited earlier evidence from Results and discussion a country whose mammal fauna was otherwise well known (Grubb et al., 1998), and these more recent trends, During three events, the cameras recorded one or two some conservationists have concluded that Jentink’s individual Jentink’s duikers in Gola West and one individual duiker may well already have been extirpated in Sierra in Gola East (Fig. 1). The first event, in Gola West (two Leone (R. Mittermeier, personal communication). photos) was on 20 July 2008, 5:16 am (Fig. 2), and the second event (two photos) was on 21 August 2008 at 4:29 *Correspondence: E-mail: [email protected] am (not shown). It is not possible to tell from the images

2009 The Authors. Journal compilation 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Afr. J. Ecol. 1 2 Jessica Ganas and Jeremy A. Lindsell

Fig 1 Map of the Gola Forest Reserves, Sierra Leone and the two locations of the cameras whether the same animal was involved. For the first and occurs in the Gola Forest. Given that these photos were second events, ten cameras were deployed in ten different taken in some of the most degraded areas of the grid squares for a minimum of 39 nights per square. We Reserves, bordered by agricultural land and community calculated the minimum number of trap nights using the bush, it seems that this species is tolerant of forest last photograph recorded because the cameras stopped disturbance and some hunting pressure and it is not working on unknown dates during the time period. In total confined to remote or primary habitats as elsewhere there were four photographs from two events in this square. (Newing, 2001). On this basis, it can be expected to The third event occurred in Gola East on 14 October at occur throughout Gola West and Gola East (250 km2). 12:10 am (Fig. 3). Here, nine cameras were deployed for a Whether Jentink’s duiker is found in less disturbed parts minimum of 34 trap nights per square. of the Gola Forest Reserves is unknown but research is These photographs are the first direct evidence of currently underway to verify if this is the case, and it Jentink’s duiker in Sierra Leone and confirm that it seems likely.

Fig 2 Photograph of Jentink’s duiker taken in the Gola West Fig 3 Photograph of Jentink’s duiker taken in the Gola East Reserve Reserve

2009 The Authors. Journal compilation 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Afr. J. Ecol. Jentink’s duiker in Sierra Leone 3

This species was poorly known in Sierra Leone and may References have suffered adversely from logging, agricultural clear- Davies,G.&Birkenhager, B. (1990) Jentink’s duiker in Sierra ance and hunting in recent years, so it is encouraging that Leone: evidence from the Freetown Peninsula. Oryx 24, a population has been found in Gola Forest. The Gola 143–146. Forest reserves are due to become a National Park in 2012 Newing, H. (2001) Bushmeat hunting and management: and the Gola Forest Programme is currently providing implications of duiker ecology and interspeciﬁc competition. effective protection of the forest, so the future of the Gola Biol. Conserv. 10, 99–118. population is currently secure. Richards, P. (2005) War as smoke and mirrors: Sierra Leone 1991–2, 1994–5, 1995–6. Anthropol. Quart. 78, 377–402. Acknowledgements Wilson, V.J. & Wilson, B.L.P. (1990) Notes on the duikers of Sierra Leone. Arnoldia Zimbabwe 9, 451–462. We thank the partners of the Gola Forest Programme, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the (Manuscript accepted 3 March 2009) Conservation Society of Sierra Leone (CSSL) and the Sierra Leone Government for continued support. We gratefully doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2028.2009.01137.x acknowledge funding from the European Union, FFEM, Conservation International, and the RSPB. Our research assistants Mohamed Sullay and Mohamed Swaray provided invaluable ﬁeld support.

2009 The Authors. Journal compilation 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd, Afr. J. Ecol.