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The past 30 years have seen the steady development of the geographic subfield of animal geographies through an ongoing expansion of research methods, theoretical concepts, and topical and species focus. In 2021, we undertook the first international survey of the subfield with two goals: to survey practitioners about their work and to determine interest in establishing an international community. In this article we share the results of what 141 respondents from 24 countries self-reported in the areas of participant demographics, definitions of animal geographies, interest in an international community, and research as related to field sites, species, methods, and future themes. Our results indicate that a gap in intra and inter-cultural understandings of what constitutes animal geographies and a lack of an organized global structure are indeed potential limits to the subfield's capacities to continue to grow; however, we found that a focus on capacity-building and cross-cultural facilitation could provide a pathway to more international diffusion of animal geographies-based research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Simple Summary: Wild meat is a primary source of protein for many rural populations and its illegal harvest can threaten worldwide wildlife conservation efforts. Near tropical forests, wild meat can be an alternative to domestic meat consumption for different reasons (economy, access, culture, etc.). We aimed to understand drivers of illegal activities affecting wildlife in a hotspot of biodiversity (Sebitoli, Kibale National Park, Uganda) hosting threatened species (including chimpanzees) and bordered by agricultural landscapes with high human densities. Illegal activities were mapped, and individual interviews were conducted. We highlighted that being a young man coming from districts contiguous to Kibale National Park particularly raises the odds of consuming wild meat. This study might help to identify and recommend sustainable social and environmental alternatives to manage biodiversity. The African tropical forests host an inestimable number of resources, including food, medicine, vegetal and animal species. Among them, chimpanzees are threatened with extinction by human activities affecting their habitats, such as forest product harvesting, and/or more directly, snaring and trafficking. We aimed to better understand the spatial distribution of these illegal activities, and the reasons for setting snares and consuming wild meat in an agricultural landscape (subsistence farming and cash crops) densely populated near a protected area (Sebitoli, Northern part of Kibale National Park, Uganda). To carry out this study, we combined GPS records of illegal activities collected with group counts (in total, n = 339 tea workers, 678 villagers, and 1885 children) and individual interviews (n = 74 tea workers, 42 villagers, and 35 children). A quarter of illegal activities collected (n = 1661) targeted animal resources and about 60% were recorded in specific areas (southwest and northeast) of the Sebitoli chimpanzee home range. Wild meat consumption, which is illegal in Uganda, is a relatively common practice among participants (17.1% to 54.1% of respondents depending on actor types and census methods). However, consumers declared that they eat wild meat unfrequently (0.6 to 2.8 times per year). Being a young man coming from districts contiguous to Kibale National Park particularly raises the odds of consuming wild meat. Such an analysis contributes to the understanding of wild meat hunting among traditional rural and agricultural societies from East Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International guidelines recommend the integration of local communities within protected areas management as a means to improve conservation efforts. However, local management plans rarely consider communities knowledge about wildlife and their traditions to promote biodiversity conservation. In the Sebitoli area of Kibale National Park, Uganda, the contact of local communities with wildlife has been strictly limited at least since the establishment of the park in 1993. The park has not develop programs, outside of touristic sites, to promote local traditions, knowledge, and beliefs in order to link neighboring community members to nature. To investigate such links, we used a combination of semidirected interviews and participative observations (N= 31) with three communities. While human and wildlife territories are legally disjointed, results show that traditional wildlife and spiritual related knowledge trespasses them and the contact with nature is maintained though practice, culture, and imagination. More than 66% of the people we interviewed have wild animals as totems, and continue to use plants to medicate, cook, or build. Five spirits structure humanwildlife relationships at specific sacred sites. However, this knowledge varies as a function of the location of local communities and the sacred sites. A better integration of local wildlifefriendly knowledge into management plans may revive communities' connectedness to nature, motivate conservation behaviors, and promote biodiversity conservation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ABSTRACT A species, especially when it is endangered and surrounded by anthropogenic elements, can be threatened by habitat fragmentation. Food resource availability in the species' usual or surrogate habitats may reinforce or decrease its use of certain areas. Our objective was to to determine the influence of natural and anthropogenic variables on spatial distribution of eastern chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii). We first determined the home range of a wild chimpanzee community (hereafter Sebitoli Chimpanzee Community [SCC]) based on global positioning system (GPS) point locations ( n = 2,586 direct observations and feces locations) collected between 2009 and 2013 in Sebitoli, Kibale National Park, Uganda. We described SCC home range using grid cells (2,959 cells of 100 m × 100 m) referencing environmental, spatial, and topographical variables ( n = 15). We then determined diet and food species abundance within their territory ( n = 63 vegetation plots and 18 months phenological survey) and predicted distribution of the 10 most foraged fruit species within SCC home range, using environmental, spatial, and topographical variables ( n = 10) by applying a maximum entropy model (maxent). We then predicted chimpanzee presence as a function of environmental, spatial, and topographical variables ( n = 15) using the maxent model and assessed its truthfulness with the kernel model, based only on GPS point locations. Chimpanzees in Sebitoli were mostly observed in a core area of 5.42 km2 within the 25-km2 home range. They did not avoid forest edges in contact with human populations, especially males who used larger core areas than females. Factors with the greatest positive impact on the chimpanzee distribution model (maxent area under the curve [AUC] = 0.907) were related to 3 different food resources: 1) proximity to forest edges considered as attractive because of presence of crops cultivated by local farmers; 2) proximity to a tarmac road that crosses the SCC home range with shoulders covered by attractive terrestrial herbaceous vegetation; and 3) presence of wild forest fruiting resources. The results obtained with the maxent predictive model, applied on a fine scale, were consistent with the kernel model, based on real observations. Therefore, such an approach may be recommended for surveys or action plans interested in sustainable management of wildlife in an anthropogenic environment and may be a useful tool to better understand parameters of a prefered zone for an endangered species. © 2016 The Wildlife Society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the spread of road infrastructures throughout Africa to support regional development, industry, and tourism, few studies have examined how wild animals adapt their behavior and ecology in road-forest ecotones. Indeed, while numerous studies have demonstrated chimpanzee adaptability in anthropogenic landscapes, none have examined the effects of asphalted highways on wild chimpanzee behaviors. In a 29-month survey, we assessed the dangers posed by an asphalted road crossing the Sebitoli area of Kibale National Park (Uganda). We analyzed 122 individual chimpanzee crossings. Although the asphalted road represents a substantial threat to crossing animals (89 motorized vehicles per hour use this road and individuals of six different primate species were killed in 1 year), chimpanzees took into account this risk. More than 90% of the individuals looked right and left before and while crossing. Chimpanzees crossed in small subgroups (average 2.7 subgroups of 2.1 individuals per crossing event). Whole parties crossed more rapidly when chimpanzees were more numerous in the crossing groups. The individuals most vulnerable to the dangers of road crossing (females with dependents, immature, and severely injured individuals) crossed less frequently compared with non-vulnerable individuals (lone and healthy adolescents and adults). Moreover, healthy adult males, who were the most frequent crossing individuals, led progressions more frequently when crossing the road than when climbing or descending feeding trees. Almost 20% of the individuals that crossed paid attention to conspecifics by checking on them or waiting for them while crossing. These observations are relevant for our understanding of adaptive behavior among chimpanzees in human-impacted habitats. Further investigations are needed to better evaluate the effects of busy roads on adolescent female dispersal and on their use of territories. Mitigation measures (e.g., bridges, underpasses, reduced speed limits, speed-bumps, signposts, or police controls) should be established in this area. Am. J. Primatol. 77:890-900, 2015. © 2015 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landscape patterns and chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) densities in Kibale National Park show important variation among communities that are geographically close to one another (from 1.5 to 5.1 chimpanzees/km2). Anthropogenic activities inside the park (past logging activities, current encroachment) and outside its limits (food and cash crops) may impact the amount and distribution of food resources for chimpanzees (frugivorous species) and their spatial distribution within the park. Spatial and temporal patterns of fruit availability were recorded over 18 months at Sebitoli (a site of intermediate chimpanzee density and higher anthropic pressure) with the aim of understanding the factors explaining chimpanzee density there, in comparison to results from two other sites, also in Kibale: Kanyawara (low chimpanzee density) and Ngogo (high density, and furthest from Sebitoli). Because of the post-logging regenerating status of the forest in Sebitoli and Kanyawara, smaller basal area (BA) of fruiting trees most widely consumed by the chimpanzees in Kanyawara and Sebitoli was expected compared to Ngogo (not logged commercially). Due to the distance between sites, spatial and temporal fruit abundance in Sebitoli was expected to be more similar to Kanyawara than to Ngogo. While species functional classes consumed by Sebitoli chimpanzees (foods eaten during periods of high or low fruit abundance) differ from the two other sites, Sebitoli is very similar to Kanyawara in terms of land-cover and consumed species. Among feeding trees, Ficus species are particularly important resources for chimpanzees at Sebitoli, where their basal area is higher than at Kanywara or Ngogo. Ficus species provided a relatively consistent supply of food for chimpanzees throughout the year, and we suggest that this could help to explain the unusually high density of chimpanzees in such a disturbed site. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In a rapidly changing landscape highly impacted by anthropogenic activities, the great apes are facing new challenges to coexist with humans. For chimpanzee communities inhabiting encroached territories, not bordered by rival conspecifics but by human agricultural fields, such boundaries are risky areas. To investigate the hypothesis that they use specific strategies for incursions out of the forest into maize fields to prevent the risk of detection by humans guarding their field, we carried out video recordings of chimpanzees at the edge of the forest bordered by a maize plantation in Kibale National Park, Uganda. Contrary to our expectations, large parties are engaged in crop-raids, including vulnerable individuals such as females with clinging infants. More surprisingly chimpanzees were crop-raiding during the night. They also stayed longer in the maize field and presented few signs of vigilance and anxiety during these nocturnal crop-raids. While nocturnal activities of chimpanzees have been reported during full moon periods, this is the first record of frequent and repeated nocturnal activities after twilight, in darkness. Habitat destruction may have promoted behavioural adjustments such as nocturnal exploitation of open croplands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Certain features of both extant and fossil anthropoid primates have been interpreted as adaptations to ripe fruit foraging and feeding particularly spatulate incisors and trichromatic color vision. Here, we approach the question of anthropoid fruit foraging adaptations in light of the sensory and mechanical properties of anthropoid-consumed fruits in Kibale National Park, Uganda. We quantify the color, odor, size, and puncture resistance of fruits in Kibale that are consumed by anthropoid primates (N = 44) and compare these with the same traits of fruits that are not consumed by anthropoid primates (N = 24). Contrary to extant hypotheses, color and odor of anthropoid-consumed fruits do not differ from non-anthropoid–consumed fruits. However, we find that anthropoids in this system consume fruits that are significantly larger than non-anthropoid–consumed fruits, and with the exception of elephants that consume very large fruits, are the only dispersers of fruits with a surface area <4032 mm2, and a maximum diameter of 52 mm. While our findings do not support most extant hypotheses for the evolution of derived anthropoid primate traits as adaptations to ripe fruit foraging, we find some evidence to support the hypothesis that spatulate incisors may be an adaptation to foraging on large fruits, which tend to be harder. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]