Country Area - 475,440 km²
Range Area - 89,718 km² (19%)
Protected Range - 27 %
Information Quality Index (IQI) - 0.47
CITES Appendix - I
Listing Year - 1990
Elephants in Cameroon occur in three distinct bio-geographical regions. Savanna elephants are found in the northern Sahelian and Sudanian regions, while forest elephants occur in the southern forested area (Roca et al., 2015; Tchamba et al., 1997). Northern Cameroon used to hold some of the most important elephant populations in the Central African savanna. However, heavy poaching was reported in 2012 and it appears that the majority of these elephants have been lost.
A new protected area, the Mt Cameroon National Park, was declared in 2009.
In 2010 Cameroon adopted a new Strategy and Man-agement Plan for Elephants covering the period 2011 to 2020 (Ministère des Forêts et de la Faune, 2010).
In recent analyses of seizure data in ETIS, prepared for CITES, Cameroon has been identified as a country with a worrying involvement in illegal ivory trade (CITES Secretariat, 2012; Milliken et al., 2013, 2016). Cameroon was requested by the CITES Standing Committee, at its 65th meeting, to prepare a National Ivory Action Plan, which it did in February 2015 (CITES, n.d.-a).
Cameroon declared an export quota of 160 tusks (as hunting trophies from 80 animals) for each year from 2007 to 2014. In 2015 and 2016, Cameroon did not submit a quota for elephant hunting trophies, resulting in an assumed zero quota (CITES, n.d.-b).
The estimated number of elephants in areas surveyed in the last ten years in Cameroon is 6,830 ± 943 at the time of the last survey for each area. There may be an additional 1,985 to 2,134 elephants in areas not systematically surveyed. These guesses likely represent a minimum number, and actual numbers could be higher than those reported. Together, this estimate and guess apply to 61,186 km², which is 68% of the estimated known and possible elephant range. There remains an additional 32% of the estimated range for which no elephant population estimates are available.
A number of elephant populations have been surveyed using dung counts of a higher standard than before, which has resulted in an increase of about 6,500 in the estimated number of elephants since the AESR 2007, but a decline of more than 12,000 in the guesses category.
An aerial total count of Waza National Park in the north of Cameroon was carried out in 2007 (Foguekem et al., 2010) and 246 elephants were counted inside the park, with another 250 seen during the course of a reconnaissance flight further north in the Zgague area (Omondi et al., 2007). This replaces an informed guess of 475 to 1,500 elephants from a ground survey in 2002 (Saleh et al., 2002). Anti-poaching patrols stopped in 2014 because of the presence of the Boko Haram insurgents but were restarted in 2016; there is no information on the current status of elephants (Bechem, pers. comm., 2016).
In 2015 an aerial sample count of the Sudanian area, including the national parks of Bénoué, Bouba Ndjidah and Faro and the surrounding hunting blocks, was carried out as part of the Great Elephant Census, giving an estimate of 89 ± 288 (Elkan et al., 2016). In Bouba Ndjidah NP four live elephants were seen outside the counting strips; none were seen in Bénoué NP or Faro NP and 98 elephants were counted in the hunting blocks. By contrast 253 carcasses were seen. The range map has been modified using the results from this survey. These figures replace an estimate of 1,620 from 1991 (Direction de la Faune et des Parcs Nationaux, 1991). In addition an aerial total count was carried out in 2008 (Omondi et al., 2008) with 535 elephants reported in Bouba Ndjidah NP and the hunting areas, with none seen in the other two national parks. In early 2012 it was reported that 250-300 elephants had been killed by poachers in Bouba Ndjidah NP and it appears that there has been a substantial reduction in elephant numbers in this region (Elkan et al., 2016).
Mbam et Djerem National Park, in the savanna-forest ecotone in the centre of the country, is Cameroon’s second largest protected area. The first dung count of Mbam et Djerem in 2009 produced an estimate of 901 (593-1369) elephants, which has been treated as an informed guess because of the lack of an on-site dung decay study (Maisels et al., 2009). A reconnaissance survey in 2014 confirmed the continued presence of elephants (Maisels, 2014).
Deng Deng National Park and the nearby logging concession were surveyed in 2012 (Maisels et al., 2013a). Only one dung pile and a few footprints and feeding signs were observed, so an informed guess of one elephant has been recorded. It is entered as a new population.
An old guess of 60 elephants in the vicinity of the town of Yoko to the south-west of Mbam-Djerem has been replaced with an informed guess of zero elephants (Maisels, 2014). There is an even older guess of 100 elephants in the Abong-Mbang Forest Reserve to the south of Mbam-Djerem (Ekobo, pers. comm., 1994), but two surveys north and west of this reserve in 2001 (Fotso et al., 2002) recorded no elephant signs, so a zero estimate has been entered.
There are several small elephant populations in the south-west of Cameroon, close to the Nigerian border. These include Mt Cameroon, for which an informed guess of 118 from 2013 (The Ministry of Forestry and Wildlife, 2014) replaces a 2003 estimate of 178 elephants (Ekobo, 2003).
A 2002 guess of 63 from the Yabassi area (the proposed Ebo National Park) has been updated to 5-30 (Morgan, pers. comm., 2016) and the area of known range reduced. There was an old estimate of 425 for Korup National Park on the Nigerian border from 1993 (Powell, pers. comm., 1993) but a survey in 2009 showed few signs, all concentrated in a very small area in the north of the park and to the south in an adjacent logging concession (Ekobo, 2009). A new guess of 10-20 for 2011 based on modelling has been entered (Maisels, Strindberg, et al., 2013b).
A dung count was carried out in the Banyang-Mbo Wildlife Sanctuary in 2007, resulting in an informed guess of 153 to 256 elephants (Greengrass & Maisels, 2007), which replaces an older estimate of 457 elephants in 2011 (Bechem & Nchanji, 2001). Elephants were still present in the north of the sanctuary in late 2015 (Greengrass, pers. comm., 2016).
There are some areas in the south-west which were marked as ‘possible range’ in 2007. A reconnaissance survey carried out in 2013 in the Takamanda National Park found some signs and gave an informed guess of 20 elephants (Ikfuingei & Kuchambi, 2013) so this has been changed to known range. These elephants are believed to cross into Cross River NP in Nigeria (Ikfuingei & Kuchambi, 2013).
A dung count was conducted in 2014 in the Campo-Ma’an area, giving an estimate of 539 (215-446) (WWF Cameroon, 2016a), of which just over half were estimated to be in the Campo-Ma’an National Park. This replaces estimates of 548 ± 255 from 2003, for a smaller area covering part of the park (Bekhuis & Prins, 2003), and 4-14 for the remaining Ma’an Region (Matthews & Matthews, 2000).
The largest remaining elephant populations are in the forested region in south-eastern Cameroon and these are described in the following section.
A dung count of Dja Faunal Reserve was carried out in 2015 (MINFOF/UICN, 2015) giving an estimate of 420 (313-563) elephants, compared to a guess of 1,500-2,000 in 1995 (Tchamba, pers. comm., 1995).
The Ngoyla-Mintom Forest, an area of logging concessions between Dja FR and Nki National Park, was surveyed in 2011 for the first time with an estimate of 1,735 (1,431-2,103) (Nzooh Dongmo et al., 2012). Another survey in 2015 gave an estimate of 395 (243-642) and four neighbouring logging concessions were also surveyed, resulting in two additional estimates of 82 (47-143) and 22 (8-56) (WWF Cameroon, 2016b). This total estimate of 499 is recorded as a new population.
Nki NP was surveyed in 2015 by dung count (WWF Cameroon, 2016b) giving an estimate of 565 (355-898), which replaces an earlier estimate of 2,178 from 1998 (Ekobo, pers. comm., 1998). A 2005 estimate of 2,577 was not captured in the AESR 2007 (Nzooh Dongmo et al., 2006). A dung count was carried out in Boumba-Bek National Park in 2015 (WWF Cameroon, 2016b) giving an estimate of 143 (85-242) elephants. This replaces a guess of 318 from 2004 (Blake, 2005). Another dung count in 2012 gave an estimate of 2,062 (1,545-2,752) (Maisels et al., 2014a).
There was an estimate of 185 ± 86 for the forest concessions north of Nki in 2015 (these areas had not been previously surveyed) and 547 ± 242 for Mongokele Forest Reserve (WWF Cameroon, 2016c), which replaces an estimate of 773 from 1991 (Ekobo, 1993).
A guess of 1,354 for the Mengame Wildlife Sanctuary (to the west of Ngoyla-Mintom Forest) from 2003 (Halford et al., 2003) has been replaced by a guess of 10 (Maisels, Strindberg et al., 2013b).
Lobéké National Park is surrounded by logging and hunting concessions. Together they form the Cameroonian part of the ‘Trinational de la Sangha’ transfrontier protected area. A dung count of this area was carried out in 2015 (WWF Cameroon, 2016d). For Lobéké NP the estimate of 1,029 (670-1582) replaces one of 3,719 ± 2125 from 1993 (Ekobo, 2003). Another dung count in 2009 gave an estimate of 1,426 (Blake et al., 2012). There was also an estimate of 2,737 ± 603 for the previously unsurveyed areas around Lobéké NP (WWF Cameroon, 2016).