Impacts of human activity on mammals 953
duiker), closer to the village and in areas with greater human population density (bay duiker). This could result from an increase in favourable resources. Clark et al. (2009) and Vanthomme et al. (2013) similarly found a positive corre- lation between these duikers and disturbance from roads, logging and settlements. Peter’s duikers may be able to with- stand hunting as a result of a higher maximum sustainable yield (van Vliet & Nasi, 2008), but bay duikers are less re- silient (van Vliet et al., 2007) and could be more susceptible to unsustainable hunting in the community forest. The most commonly hunted bushmeat species (blue dui-
ker, brush-tailed porcupine and giant pouched rat; Fa et al., 2006) had high estimates of occupancy and detection prob- ability, indicating generally high abundance because, all else being equal, detection probability increases with abundance (MacKenzie et al., 2006). Their high detection probability could also be linked to our survey protocol, as these species tend to use the trails along which cameras were placed, and similarly some species that were not detected may be less likely to use these trails or may requiremore specific camera placements (e.g. Bruce et al., 2018b). Nevertheless, occu- pancy increased towards the Reserve for brush-tailed por- cupines and giant pouched rats, suggesting that hunting of these species could be depleting populations close to the vil- lage. Blue duikers appear to be unaffected by this, as their distribution does not show the same pattern, potentially reflecting their ability to cope with hunting (van Vliet & Nasi, 2008; Ehlers Smith et al., 2018). Although we cannot tell from one survey what role the community forest has played in shaping the mammal com- munity, its presence may have increased awareness about the need for hunting sustainably (Ngang, 2015). However, several other factors could also explain why our study area remains important for mammals. The location of the village close to the protected area allows movement of individuals from the Reserve to the community forest (Dupain et al., 2004). Additionally, the village is remote and, before the logging road was built, it was very isolated, limiting access to bushmeat markets and perhaps reducing the incentive to hunt for income, until recently. The improvedmarket ac- cess provided by the road may have led to increased hunting offtake (Ziegler et al., 2016) and increased threat to the spe- cies we detected. However, as there are no previous survey data, it is vital that further surveys are conducted. Many of the mammal species found in the Dja region are
threatened or have declining populations (IUCN, 2021) and would benefit from systematic monitoring. Half of the me- dium-sized and large species we did not detect have an IUCN Red List status of Near Threatened or threatened, and although we detected Critically Endangered gorillas, we did not obtain a sufficient number of photographs to model their occupancy. For the threatened species for which we could model occupancy, our occupancy estimates had large standard errors as a result of low detection
probabilities. Our findings highlight the difficulty of moni- toring threatened mammals, especially in forest habitats (Wilcox et al., 2019). However, only with continued moni- toring efforts over time and measurements of offtake will it be possible to identify species population trends and esti- mate hunting sustainability (Ntube et al., 2002; Milner- Gulland & Rowcliffe, 2007), which are essential for species conservation and sustainable forest management within the community forest.
Acknowledgements We thank Thomas Bruce for his help with species identifications, The European Space Agency Climate Change Initiative Land Cover project for data, and the anonymous reviewers for their feedback and suggestions. This research was carried out as part of the corresponding author’s master’s degree at Imperial College London and the open access article processing charge was covered by the Imperial Open Access Fund. This research received no other specific grant from any funding agency, or commercial or not-for-profit sectors.
Author contributions Survey design: SB; fieldwork: SB, FK, CTKT; data analysis, writing: SJT; guidance, editing: SB, JMR.
Conflicts of interest None.
Ethical standards This research abided by the Oryx guidelines on ethical standards. Free informed consent was obtained from the village chief and inhabitants of the study village to conduct this research, and they were aware they could withdraw their consent at any time. Any images of people obtained by the camera traps were deleted. The vil- lage name is not presented to ensure anonymity. This research was approved by Oxford University’s Central University Research Ethics Committee (R45771/RE001).
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Oryx, 2022, 56(6), 947–955 © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605321000806
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