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Entries for ' Conservation science'
April 16, 2025
A scientific paper recently published reveals that soil scratching by gorillas in Congo’s Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park is a foraging strategy to access a species of deer truffle, identified as Elaphomyces labyrinthinus, and not insects, as long assumed.
These findings were developed by Gaston Abea, who became the first Indigenous Person in Ndoki to become the lead author of a peer-reviewed scientific paper.
This truffle gorilla foraging behavior seems to have social implication...
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November 12, 2024
A groundbreaking study released today reveals the alarming state of African elephant populations over the last 50 years. Both forest and savanna elephant species have experienced widespread declines due to overexploitation and habitat loss, mirroring the global trend affecting large-bodied animals.
The research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, analyzed hundreds of population surveys from 475 sites across 37 African countries between 1964 and 20...
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September 19, 2024
The French newspaper Le Monde Afrique published a photo report on the progress made in including Indigenous Peoples in the management of protected areas in the Congo Basin, focusing on Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, where the journalist met with researchers and ecoguards from the BaAka peoples.
Read the piece at this link. Find the PDF here.
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February 14, 2024
Undark magazine takes a look at early epidemic detection initiatives, including sampling animal carcasses found dead in the forest in northern Congo by the WCS.
Read more here. PDF version here.
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August 18, 2021
For some reason, Esther has always dreamed of working in the forest. Despite the predominance of men in this field, she made a place for herself as a research assistant in the heart of the Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, and showed that research is open to all.
“I don’t know why I always wanted to be in the forest,” says Esther Nkoussou, shrugging her shoulders as she packs to get ready to go gorilla-tracking, deep in the Congo Basin forest.
For a year now, Esther has been ...
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August 10, 2021
Diane Doran-Sheehy looking through binoculars, 1998 ©Natashah Shah
At the edge of Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park, in a truly remote part of the northern Congo rainforest, the last 25 years have seen the Mondika research site evolve from a modest forest camp, into one of the world’s most important centres for studies on the western lowland gorilla, thanks to the dedication of a long line of incredible people. This is the history of the site, in their words.
It all started with &ldq...
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June 07, 2021
Read the study
A new study published in the journal Diversity and Distributions predicts massive range declines of Africa’s great apes – gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos – due to the impacts of climate change, land-use changes and human population growth.
For their analysis, the authors compiled information on African ape occurrence held in the IUCN SSC A.P.E.S. database, a repository that includes a remarkable amount of information on population stat...
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March 31, 2021
Female putty-nosed monkeys use calls just to recruit males when certain predators are detected
Results suggest that different “dialects” exist among different populations of monkeys
Images captions, and audio files
Researchers with the Wildlife Conservation Society’s (WCS) Congo Program and the Nouabalé-Ndoki Foundation found that female putty-nosed monkeys (Cercopithecus nictitans) use males as “hired guns” to defend from predators ...
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March 25, 2021
The overall declining trend of both African elephant species calls for increased support by donors, governments of the elephant range states, and the international community to ensure that elephant populations start to stabilize and even begin a route to recovery.
The African savannah elephant and the forest elephant have now been classified as Endangered and Critically Endangered in the IUCN Red List of Threatened SpeciesTM. This comes after a recent decision by the African Elephant Speciali...
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December 23, 2020
Now assigned in Mbeli Bai, Nestor works mainly at monitoring wildlife ©D.NZoulou/WCS
Twenty years ago, the legendary expedition across Central Africa known as the “Megatransect” was coming to an end. This large-scale study of the Congo Basin’s forest brought unprecedented international attention to this biodiverse and endangered ecosystem. Among those who took part in this unique adventure, Nestor Massembo, a Ba’Aka tracker, has since then dedicated his life to wi...
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