Road Construction in Protected Areas Good for Ecotourism but Bad for Biodiversity Conservation – A Case Study of Yankari Game Reserve Green-winged Pytilia.
Standard-winged Nightjar (Macrodipteryx longipennis), in its breeding plumage knocked down during dusk displays.
The blood and spines of Crested Porcupine (Hystrix cristata).
Areas of biodiversity conservation serve as hotspots for ecotourism, attracting high level construction of recreational amenities. Usually these amenities become a threat to wildlife. In the Yankari Game Reserve Bauchi State, Nigeria, the State Government recently constructed a paved road, which increased vehicular traffic and speed levels.
This has increased incidences of road kills, which may have adverse effect on animal activities and population. These however have not been scientifically documented. This project aims to evaluate the effects of the paving of the major road leading into the Yankari Game Reserve in a bid to make necessary recommendations that will lead to informed management policy for the Reserve.
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Project Update: August 2010 The project got under way on the 8th May 2010. So far, a total of 89 animals have been recorded as road kill on the road. Of these 80.5% are birds, 2.3% large mammals (including water buck and Grimm’s duiker), 5.7% small mammals and 11.5% are reptiles. The survey also showed that weekends (Friday – Sunday) have the highest mortality and the highest traffic. However, there are other days of the week with high traffic, which may be due some events taking place in the camp on those days. Furthermore, when sections of the road were compared to check for sections with high mortality, it was discovered that there was no significant difference among the sections.
Among the 3 months reviewed, June has the highest mortality with July having the least.
Project Update: February 2011 In the continuation of the work, I have so far recorded additional 38 animals that have been knocked down. The trend still remains that birds have the highest percentage mortality than any other groups of animals. It is interesting to note that the number of animals killed reduced drastically between the months of September and December. This reduction in number of mortality at the peak of the rainy season may be due to the fact that animals have abundance of resources (food, water cover etc.), which made them not move often from one habitat to another - thereby reducing their use of the road. In December 2010 however, the routine fire management may have made them reduce their activities around the road. It was also noted that the average speed of motorists along the road is 81.1 km/h as against the recommended 30 km/h. I also observed that some scavengers like spotted hyaena (Crocuta crocuta) take advantage of the road kill as food. This was the case when a crested porcupine (Hystrix cristata) was knocked down. All I met at the scene was its spines and blood on the road, and beside the road the paw prints of spotted hyaena dragging the corpse away.
No particular section of the road has been implicated as a 'red zone' yet, although when all the data is combined, then we may see a trend. The abstract of the work was accepted for poster presentation at SCCS Cambridge
Final Report Read more about the activities undertaken and findings of this project in the final report below.
, in its breeding plumage knocked down during dusk displays..JPG)
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