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The leopard (Panthera pardus) is increasingly threatened in West Africa, and is apparently very rare and has been driven to extinction across much of Nigeria. In the Niger Delta, where it is considered extremely threatened, with very few sightings in the last decades. In this study we document both direct (skins, footprints, scats, etc.) and indirect (village hunter’s interviews) signs of leopard presence in order to reconstruct leopard presence in the Niger Delta, across the period 2000–2015. Data were combined into three survey periods: 2000–2002, 2006–2008 and 2012–2015, and compared with literature data for 1996–1997. Recent skins were recorded in 2.2–4.3% of the villages (n = 39–62). In addition, the leopard was reported to be present by hunters in another 3.3–10.3% of the villages. Overall, some specific sectors of the Delta were recurrently target of both direct and indirect signs of leopard presence (barrier islands and flood forest along the central axis of the River Niger), but all direct sightings occurred in a few barrier islands. In the Niger Delta, there was no evidence of females with cubs since decades and a few skins were the only direct signs of leopard’s current presence. Our results suggest that leopard populations may be functionally extinct in the Niger Delta, with just a few vagrant individuals, in dispersal and/or hunting, being still found. Barrier island forests are apparently the last vegetation zone of the Delta still potentially inhabited by leopards, and deserve careful managements in the years to come.

Community composition and an index of relative abundance were analyzed for mammals (excluding most rodents, shrews and bats) of five forest reserves in the Niger Delta (Southern Nigeria). Twenty-nine species were recorded, 86.2% of them being found in all protected areas. Although most of the species were already known from the study area, there were unexpected patterns concerning the duikers. Indeed, the presence of only one species (Philantomba walteri) (CH Smith, 1827) was confirmed, whereas at least five additional duiker species were reported for the study area by earlier authorities. Another duiker species (Cephalophus nigerGray, 1846) was recorded once during the present surveys and is not known whether it represents a stabilized presence in the Niger Delta. The empirical Abundance Index suggested that only three species were very rare (Trichechus senegalensis(Link, 1795), C. niger, and Pan troglodytes(Blumenbach, 1775)). Diversity-dominance diagrams showed that the evenness profiles were similar across study areas. Linear distance (Km) between the barycenters of forest reserves was significantly positively correlated with relative community composition dissimilarity. Overall, a biotic homogenization process for the mammal communities of the five forest reserves was observed, likely as an outcome of the high deforestation of the last 50 years.

The Edumanon Forest Reserve is one of the least explored protected areas in the Niger Delta region of southern Nigeria, West Africa. In this article, we report the results of preliminary surveys, conducted between 2011 and 2014, for determining a checklist and a relative estimate of abundance for three groups of vertebrates, namely mammals, reptiles, and amphibians. Overall, we detected 69 vertebrate species (birds excluded), several of them being of high conservation concern. Among the most remarkable species from the conservation point of view, we can cite the chimpanzee, the manatee, and three species of sympatric crocodiles. Analysis of the reptile diversity suggested that species dominance was high and evenness was low, thus revealing altered ecological conditions in this forest area. Nonetheless, several forest specialists were still observed in this forest reserve. The conservation implications of the observed patterns, together with some ethnozoological data, are also discussed.