Recent Bristol Zoological Society survey reveals threats to wildlife in Cameroon’s Bénoué National Park

A new survey by Bristol Zoological Society reveals rich biodiversity but warns about the decline of large mammals in Bénoué National Park, north Cameroon.

Working with local NGO, Sekakoh, and Cameroon’s Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, researchers from Bristol Zoological Society completed the first ever systematic camera-trap survey of Bénoué National Park. This study offers the largest and most detailed biodiversity assessment of the park’s wildlife to date, using camera traps.

Camera traps are motion-activated cameras that automatically take photos or videos of wildlife when they pass by. The survey deployed 38 camera traps over an area the size of Greater London, capturing 56,000 images over 10 months.
Bénoué National Park is vast, remote, and difficult to access, making traditional wildlife monitoring challenging.

Conservationists have historically relied on aerial counts or foot surveys, but these methods often miss elusive or nocturnal animals. Camera trapping has now transformed what experts know about the park’s biodiversity.

By combining the new 2023 dataset with earlier camera-trap records from 2019-2020, researchers identified 33 mammal species. This is more than double the 16 species recorded in a 2015 aerial survey, and it far exceeds the 20 species identified in a recent foot survey, both of which required far more resources.

The survey confirmed the presence of 10 threatened species listed on the IUCN Red List, including the Critically Endangered Kordofan giraffe. A variety of elusive or nocturnal species also appeared, such as aardvark, caracal, and side-striped jackal.

These findings highlight the importance of camera trapping for revealing cryptic wildlife, those that are well-camouflaged, nocturnal or difficult to distinguish, and for forming a clearer picture of mammal diversity.

The results are already helping conservationists understand how species use different areas of the park, informing where monthly anti-poaching patrols, funded by Bristol Zoological Society, can be most effective.

While overall species richness remains high, the survey also revealed concerning trends, including high domestic cattle numbers that threaten wildlife through competition for food and habitat degradation. It also highlighted the rarity, or possible local extinction, of several species of conservation concern, for example, African savanna elephants and lions.

Kordofan giraffes were recorded at only one site, emphasising the fragility of the species in the Bénoué National Park, an area supposed to be one of their few remaining strongholds. Giant eland were completely absent from the 2023 dataset, raising fears that the species is on the threshold of extinction in the park.

Together, these patterns indicate a continuing decline of large mammals across the wider Bénoué Ecosystem Complex, driven by poaching, overgrazing, habitat degradation, and human encroachment.

Dr Sam Penny, Conservation Lecturer at Bristol Zoological Society, who led the project, said: “While detections for some species were low, overall species richness remains high in the park, reinforcing Bénoué National Park as a biodiversity hotspot of global value. This baseline data is vital for tracking long-term biodiversity trends and provides crucial evidence to guide the management of this ecologically important but increasingly threatened landscape.”

Despite the apparent declines of some species revealed by this survey, the findings also present a powerful opportunity for the future of conservation. By strengthening anti-poaching patrols, maintaining long-term monitoring, and engaging with local communities and stakeholders, Bénoué National Park could remain a refuge for some of the world’s most threatened species.

The Bristol Zoological Society managed project was delivered under the IUCN Save Our Species African Wild Initiative project and co-funded by the European Union International Partnerships.

The full research paper is available at: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.17652014

To find out more about Bristol Zoological Society’s education work and conservation programmes across the globe, visit www.bristolzoo.org.uk.