Bushmeat hunting in Dwesa and Cwebe Nature Reserves, Eastern Cape, South Africa

Reports of bushmeat hunting as a threatening process are almost entirely restricted to tropical biomes and developing countries. Mammalian fauna within South Africa's fenced reserves could be considered immune to such threats; however, there has been no study testing this. Transects were conducted throughout the fenced, temperate coastal indigenous forested reserves of Dwesa and Cwebe to detect sign (observations, footprints, faeces) of medium and large mammals, and evidence of poaching (snares, human footprints, bullet cartridges). I used generalized linear models of relative abundance data to identify the most likely causes of population decline and presence/absence data to identify the most likely causes of local extinction. Two of the largest mammals (white rhinoceros, Ceratotherium simum and eland, Tragelaphus oryx, were the only species that had distance to the reserve boundary (and hunting humans) as the most important factors affecting their distribution; however, three other ungulates avoided humans (avoided reserve boundary or roads). Highly unusual habitat use (forest restriction) was observed for several normally grassland inhabitants, illustrating the perceived risks associated with open habitats. This study illustrates that bushmeat hunting is not a threat restricted to the Third World tropics and that conservation areas require monitoring, as well as fencing, to ensure poaching does not threaten wildlife.