After Gorrilla sightings tourism gets a lift
Months after the first images of a group of gorillas with a number of infants were spotted at the Cross Rivers National Park (CRNP), the management of the park have yet again recorded trap photos of a large herd of forest elephants in some parts of the park.
According to the management, the herd of elephant was spotted around the salt lick in Bashu axis of the Park- Okwangwo division which was previously difficult to sight in such number. The rare images were the outcome of management’s strategy of ensuring intensified patrols and visible presence of rangers in their stations and on duty, as well as increased community engagements, alongside a more defined and purposeful collaboration with Wildlife Conservation Society (WSC) Nigeria.
According to atqnews.com, in July, images of the Cross River State gorillas captured in the Mbe Mountains in Nigeria went viral igniting excitement among tourism enthusiast.
About 50 cameras were set up in 2012 and multiple images have been captured in Cameroon’s Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary and in Nigeria’s Mbe Mountains community forest and Afi Mountain Wildlife Sanctuary. But Cross River gorillas are notoriously difficult to capture together on camera and no images had captured multiple infants.
Cross River gorillas (Gorilla Gorilla diehli) are the most endangered gorilla subspecies, numbering only around 300 individuals and found only in an isolated region along the Nigeria/Cameroon border.
Recently in Lagos State, a herd of elephants was sighted around Epe Waterside. Sources claim that the elephants have their original habitat at the Omo Reserve in neighbouring Ogun State.
Human activities and rising water level, may have been responsible for the elephants’ straying into the Itasin-Epe water boundary, destroying cassava farms and disrupting fishing activities along their way.
The Nigerian Conservation Foundation (NCF), reports on its website that the populations of forest elephants are in dire need of protection in the country, stating that only about 200 of them remain in the wild in five sites in southern Nigeria.
The NCF site corroborates the recent sighting in Lagos, when it listed Omo Reserve among the five sites where forest elephants are found in southern Nigeria. The other places are: Okomu National Park in Edo State, the Cross River National Park in Cross River State, the Idanre Forests and Osse River Park in Ondo State and the Andoni Island in Rivers State.
According to NCF, some of the problems facing the Nigerian Forest Elephants include: conversion of forest for other uses, loss of habitat and fragmentation, and poaching for their ivory, among others.
To save the elephants from dwindling or going extinct in the country, in the medium term (10‐20 years), the NCF is calling for organised conservation work, public support and enlightenment, and good habitat management.
