Songon, Oct 17, 2023 (AIP)- Conservation practitioners from West African chimpanzee range countries have been taking part in a workshop on "Camera trapping of chimpanzees and other wildlife species" since Monday October 16, 2023, at the Adiopodoumé headquarters of the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques (CSRS) in Côte d'Ivoire.

Organized by the IUCN SSC PSG SGA A.P.E.S. database team and the NGO Re:wild, in collaboration with the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques (CSRS), the event was supported by USAID through the West Africa Biodiversity and Low Emissions Development (WABiLED) program.

According to training coordinator Dr Téné Sop, the aim is to enable conservation practitioners from West African chimpanzee range countries to familiarize themselves with the "Camera Trap Distance Sampling (CTDS)" approach, which is increasingly used in the field. an approach increasingly used in conservation science for estimating the abundance of wildlife populations.

"The use of camera traps to monitor terrestrial wildlife has gained in popularity as a non-invasive method that can be used in the most difficult habitats", explains Dr. Téné Sop, who also manages the IUCN SSC PSG SGA A.P.E.S. database for great ape populations.

From October 16 to 21, this workshop will enable all participants to further develop their skills in planning, designing, implementing and analyzing data from camera-trap inventories to produce estimates of animal abundance.

Organized by the IUCN SSC PSG SGA A.P.E.S. database team and the NGO Re:wild, in collaboration with the Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques (CSRS), the event was supported by USAID through the West Africa Biodiversity and Low Emissions Development (WABiLED) program.According to training coordinator Dr Téné Sop, the aim is to enable conservation practitioners from West African chimpanzee range countries to familiarize themselves with the "Camera Trap Distance Sampling (CTDS)" approach, which is increasingly used in the field.

Monitoring wildlife populations is a fundamental element of evidence-based conservation. It enables the presence, distribution, density and trends of species to be estimated, and integrated with the determinants of their environment at all spatial scales.

(AIP)

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