Boumba Bek National Park

The Boumba BekNational Park in south-­‐easternCameroonhas longbeen known to have an important populationof forest elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees and other forest fauna. This report details the second density estimate of the elephants and great apes of the areaconducted on a survey that ran between 14 January through 31 March 2012. Standard line transect methodology was used, with asurvey effort of just under 106kilometres (106transects) covering the majority of the park overanarea of 2079km2. A total of 1112 elephant dung were recorded along transects in 2012; encounter rate was 9.5 (95% c.l. 8.1-­‐11.2). Elephant dung density (all dung including S4 & S5, which are the two dungclasses considered tohave decayed: dung is classified when encountered as stages S1 through S5) was 1549/km² (95% c.l. 1282-­‐1871; cv 9.57%); the corresponding elephant density was 1.2112 (95% c.l. 0.912-­‐1.608), giving a total of 2517 (95% c.l. 1896-­‐3343; CV 14.42%)individual elephants in Boumba-­‐Bek in 2012.Dung density without S4 and S5 was 1269 (95% c.l. 1043-­‐1544) /km² and individual elephant density (using the dung with S4 and S5 excluded) was estimated at0.99/km²(95% c.l. 0.74-­‐1.32; CV 14.7%), translating to 2062 (95% c.l. 1545-­‐2752) individual elephants in Boumba-­‐Bek in 2012.We used alocally obtained dung decay rate of 67.30 (SE 7.26)collected using the methods recommended in the MIKE Dung Survey Standards (Hedges and Lawson 2006). When we compared elephant dung density between 2008 and 2012, whether including S4 and S5 dung or not, there was no significant difference between the two survey cycles.As in the previoustwo cycles (2004 and 2008) the majority of elephant dung was in the southwest of the Park, furthest from roads and village