Survey on the Movements and migration corridors of Loxodonta africana cyclotis (Proboscidea: Mammalia) in the Monzo Forest of Bosobolo Territory (Nord-Ubangi Province, Democratic Republic of the Congo)

Recent findings revealed that 90% of elephants are decreased, mainly due to hunting for ivory and the rapid expansion of human activities both in protected and non-protected areas including trans-boundary regions. Habitat fragmentation is also a problem faced by many species all over the world due to human activities. The aim this study is to carry out a survey on the movements and migration corridors of Loxodonta africana cyclotis in the Monzo Forest of Bosobolo Territory, Nord-Ubangi Province the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The present study was carried out into three steps: pre-survey (which consists in questioning the Territory Administrator, the heads of sectors and the supervisor of the Territorial Environment Service), survey (on 100 hunters and 100 farmers) and in situ biomonitoring to search elephant indices through the transect technique. The following parameters were taken into account in the survey: The presence of elephant (movement and migration corridors) via indices like dung density, field damage; the level of encounters with elephants; the migration season; the cause of extinction and regular migrations. Results revealed that the majority of respondents have over 5 years of experience in elephant hunting. Among these hunters 64.4% are active and 35.5% inactive. The main livelihood activity was agriculture (53.3%). 84.4% of the respondents encountered live elephants or their dung. The intense frequencies of elephant were observed from 1997 to 2002 while elephant disappearance was certified from 2002 to 2012 and the reappearance confirmed from 2012 to 2017 (90%). From 1997 to 2017, 16.6% of respondents thank that hunters killed 1 to 25 elephant heads while 14.4% of respondents reveal that hunters killed more than 100 heads during this period. The mobility is high in January and from June to December and moderate from February to May. The conservation of these mammals and their habitat would be of great importance, as elephants play a very important ecological role in the forests, particularly in maintaining high productivity. It is therefore necessary to zoning the site in order to obtain precise geographical coordinates of the migration corridors of elephant in the Monzo Forest; to install camera traps for the monitoring of elephant and to access the population size.