Poaching and its impact on Wildlife Populationin Ise Forest Reserve, Ekiti State.

Abstract

Poaching wildlife for food is a major threat towildlife conservation in Nigeria where the demand for bushmeat isever-increasing, decimating wildlife resources in the protected areas.This study examinespoaching and its impact on wildlife populations in Ise forest reserve, Ise-Ekiti, Ekiti State. Twenty-one forest officials and 23 hunters were interviewed using pre-tested structured questionnaires. Market surveysandshort reconnaissance surveys were also carried outto sample animal species being poachedand data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics. The results show that 90.5% of the respondents were married and 61.9 % had no formal education.The majority (85.7%) combined hunting with farming and 52.4% earned between ₦20,000 and ₦30,000 monthly while43.5% used Dane-gun, snare (30.4%), and traps (23.9%) and 67.86% hunt at nightwith74.1% hunting ungulateswith at least 2 kills per week.  However, 85.7% agreed to a sharp decline in species being hunted with habitat destruction (52%), habitat fragmentation (40%), and slash and burn (8%) being the major threat to wildlife population in the reserve. Additionally, theprohibition of the unauthorized entry (52.8%), issuance of a hunting license (41.7%),and regulating hunting seasons (5.6%) would curb illegal hunting in the reserve. There is the need foractive participation of the communities around the forest reserve in the planning and implementation of forest policies for the conservation of the animal diversity within the reserve for posterity.