First insights into rodent trapping in Oku village, north-west Cameroon, based on interviews with local hunters A LAIN D. MISSOUP,NGARTOUBAM D IDIER E RNEST C. KEMING and C HRISTIANE D ENYS Abstract Mount Oku, in the Northwest Region of Cameroon, Brashares, ; Fa & Nasi, ) or unaffordable (Junker is known for its rodent diversity. It is located in an area with a et al., ). Bushmeat also provides an important source high human population density (up to /km ), resulting in of income for rural and forest populations who may depend intense pressure on natural resources. Threats to biodiversity on wildlife resources to alleviate periods of economic hard- include overgrazing by cattle and goats in grassland areas ship (e.g. crop failures), or to supplement their primary and montane forests, firewood harvesting, agriculture, bee source of income, which is often based on small-scale keeping, debarking of Prunus trees for medicinal uses, and crop farming (Loibooki et al., ; Schulte-Herbrüggen bushmeat hunting. We used data from interviews with et al., ). Because of rapid human population growth, local hunters to provide insights into rodent trapping in use of more efficient hunting tools, and increased access Oku village. Trapping took place primarily in closed canopy to forests provided by infrastructure developments, the har- forest. The majority of hunters (.%)setatleast traps vesting of wildlife is often unsustainable and has become per week, with a mean of rodents trapped per hunter per one of the main threats to tropical biodiversity. This exploi- week. The two most captured species were the Vulnerable tation is a major cause of wildlife decline and defaunation Hartwig’spraomysPraomys hartwigi and the Endangered (Dirzo et al., ). A study describing the contribution of Mount Oku rat Lamottemys okuensis, both of which have overhunting on global-scale population declines and range declining populations. Rodents were harvested mainly for contractions of mammal species found that nearly all household consumption and/or local trade, but .%of declines occurred in developing countries, where another interviewees also used P. hartwigi for traditional medicine. major threat is habitat loss caused by deforestation, agri- Our findings suggest that rodent trapping in Oku village cultural expansion, human encroachment and competition requires conservation attention, and that further quantitative with livestock (Ripple et al., ). Based on direct observa- studies are needed to assess its sustainability. tions, a literature review and interviews with hunters, the extirpation of large mammals in the Kilum-Ijim forest on Keywords Bushmeat,Cameroon,hunting,interviews,Lamot- Mount Oku in north-west Cameroon probably began in temys okuensis,Okuvillage,Praomys hartwigi,rodents the early th century, possibly starting with the loss Supplementary material for this article is available at of elephants Loxodonta africana, followed by buffalos doi.org/./S Syncerus caffer nanus (since the s) and other large and medium-sized mammals such as leopards Panthera pardus, chimpanzees Pan troglodytes and red river hogs Introduction Potamochoerus porcus (Maisels et al., ). Kilum-Ijim forest, on Mount Oku and the nearby Ijim he consumption of meat from wild animals, commonly Ridge in the Cameroon mountains, is the largest remaining Treferred to as bushmeat, is widespread throughout rural patch of Afromontane forest in West and Central Africa. and urban areas in the tropics (Milner-Gulland & Bennett, The area is known for its rich diversity of endemic ). It contributes to food security, particularly where fish plant and animal taxa. Forty plant species endemic to and farmed meat are unavailable (Bowen-Jones et al., ; Cameroon occur in Oku (Cheek et al., ), and the mountain harbours of the species of birds that are endemic to the country (Forboseh et al., ). It is proba- ALAIN D. MISSOUP (Corresponding author, orcid.org/0000-0002-3018-9188) and NGARTOUBAM DIDIER Zoology Unit, Laboratory of Biology and Physiology bly the last stronghold for two of these endemic species, of Animal Organisms, Faculty of Science, University of Douala, Douala, Bannerman’s turaco Tauraco bannermani and the banded Cameroon. E-mail [email protected] wattle-eye Platysteira laticincta, both categorized as En- ERNEST C. KEMING Kilum-Ijim Forest Project, Kumbo, Cameroon dangered on the IUCN Red List (IUCN, ). A recently CHRISTIANE DENYS ( orcid.org/0000-0002-1519-1546) Institut de Systématique, updated checklist of amphibians from Oku included Evolution, Biodiversité, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Sorbonne Universités, Paris, France species, five of which are endemic to the mountain, Received January . Revision requested February . seven to the Banso-Bamenda Highlands and to the Accepted June . First published online April . Cameroon Volcanic Line (Doherty-Bone & Gvoždik, ). This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, Downloadeddistribution, from https://www.cambridge.org/core and reproduction in any medium,. IP address: provided 170.106.202.8 the original work, onis 27 properly Sep 2021 cited. at 17:38:17, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/termsOryx, 2021, 55(4), 599–606 ©. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0030605319000772The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605319000772 600 A. D. Missoup et al. Seventy-seven species of mammals have been recorded on Oku since (Maisels et al., ), comprising mostly small-bodied species primarily from the Rodentia, Soricomorpha and Chiroptera. There are no other reports on the status of mammal populations of Mount Oku, except for rodents and shrews (Denys et al., ; Ntoungwa et al., ). The most recent checklist of Oku rodents suggested that at least species occur in the area. Seven species are endemic to the Banso-Bamenda Highlands (Denys et al., ), with four of them restricted to Mount Oku. Six spe- cies (all endemics except Lemniscomys mittendorfi) are cate- gorized as Vulnerable or Endangered on the IUCN Red List, with a decreasing population trend (IUCN, ). With a human population density of up to /km , Oku village is one of the most densely populated areas in rural Africa, resulting in intense pressure on natural resources. Threats to the surrounding ecosystems include overgrazing by cattle and goats in grassland areas and montane forests, firewood harvesting, agriculture, bee keeping, debarking of Prunus trees for medicinal uses, and bushmeat hunting (Oates et al., ). In researchers found a large num- ber of so-called rat-squashing traps in the forest, suggesting that small rodents were among the animals primarily tar- geted by hunters (Maisels et al., ). This pattern is not common in the Congo Basin forest block where most FIG. 1 Location of the study area in the Northwest Region of harvested mammals are large and medium-sized species Cameroon. (Ripple et al., ), and there are no published reports describing the hunting of rodents in the context of wildlife conservation in Central Africa. Small mammals can provide the Banso-Bamenda Highlands were completely covered important ecological functions, including seed dispersal with forest (Cheek et al., ). The forested area was (Yi & Zhang, ), pollination (Johnson & Pauw, ), , ha in but had been reduced to c. , ha by consumption of vegetation and invertebrates (Payne & (Momo et al., ). The remaining forests on Mount Longland, ) and soil disturbance (Teunkens, ). In Oku are not part of any formally protected area. The vege- addition, they are a primary food source for many other tation has been described by Maisels & Forboseh (), vertebrates including owls, diurnal birds, and micro- and Cheek et al. () and Asanga (). The Kilum-Ijim for- mesocarnivores (Riegert et al., ). Rodent population est is a montane cloud forest, with a canopy dominated by declines and local extirpations can thus negatively affect upper montane forest species such as Podocarpus latifolius, ecosystems. Here we document rodent trapping in Oku, Syzygium guineense, Schefflera mannii, Carapa grandiflora, based on data collected from local hunters. Nuxia congesta, Prunus africana and Bersama abyssinica. Since secondary forests have developed on former fallow lands, mainly characterized by heliophilous and fire- Study area resistant trees and shrubs (Gnidia glauca, Hypericum revo- lutum, Hypericum roeperianum, Maesa lanceolate, Erica mannii), Oku village, in the Bui and Boyo administrative subdivision and herbs of open habitats (Hyparrhenia sp., Sporobolus of the Northwest Region of Cameroon (Central Africa), is africanus, Pennisetum clandestinum). at c. , m altitude on Mount Oku, within the Banso- Bamenda Highlands (Fig. ). The equatorial climate of the – region is characterized by a wet season of months Methods (c. April–November) and a dry season of – months – (c. December March). Mean annual rainfall is , mm Data collection and temperature during the dry season is – °C (Forboseh & Ikfuingei, ). In January , we interviewed hunters local to Oku It is likely that before the increase of the human popula- village. We divided the village into five areas and identi- tion and the development of agriculture in the th century, fied households with potential interviewees based on the Oryx, 2021, 55(4), 599–606 © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge