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| Bushmeat hunting is a pantropical threat to rainforest
mammals. Understanding its effects on species richness,
community composition and population abundance is
of critical conservation relevance. As data on the pre-hunting
state of mammal populations in Africa are not generally
available, we evaluated the impacts of illegal bushmeat hunting
on the mammal community of two ecologically similar
forests in the Udzungwa Mountains of Tanzania. The forests
differ only in their protection status: one is a National Park
and the other a Forest Reserve. We deployed systematic
camera trap surveys in these forests, amounting to ???
and ??? camera days in the Forest Reserve and the
National Park, respectively, and investigated differences between
the two areas in estimated species-specific occupancies,
detectabilities and species richness. We show that the
mammal community in the Forest Reserve is degraded in
all aspects relative to the National Park. Species richness
was almost ??% lower in the Forest Reserve (median ?? vs
?? species, highest posterior density intervals ??–?? and
??–??, respectively). Occupancy of most species was also reduced
significantly and the functional community appeared
significantly altered, with an increase in rodents, and loss of
large carnivores and omnivores. Overall, our results show
how ineffective reserve management, with almost absent
law enforcement, leads to uncontrolled illegal hunting,
which in turn has a significant impact on the mammal
fauna of globally important sites for conservation. | |
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