Social structure and ecology of Panthera pardus Leaennus, 1758 in Taï National Park, Côte d'Ivoire

Jarvis Brumel KOPOIN 1, *, Kouakou Djakaria DRAMANE 1, Djaha André KOFFI 1, 2, Yao Célestin KOUAKOU 1, 2, Malé Roger KELY 1, 2, Claude-Victorien KOUAKOU 1, Kouamé Antoine N’GUESSAN 1, Kramoko BAMBA 1, Ange Edgard Habib MONKET  3 and Béné Jean-Claude KOFFI 1

1 Laboratory of biodiversity and Tropical Ecology, Department of Environmental Sciences, Jean Lorougnon Guédé University, Daloa, BP 150 Daloa, Côte d’Ivoire.
2 Research Group Biodiversity and nature-based solutions, Swiss Centre for Scientific Research in Côte d’Ivoire, Abidjan, BP 1303 Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire.
3 Regional Directorate of Environment, Sustainable Development, and Ecological Transition of Haut-Sassandra, Daloa, BP 2223, Daloa, Côte d’Ivoire.
 
Research Article
World Journal of Advanced Research and Reviews, 2024, 24(03), 420–432
Article DOI: 10.30574/wjarr.2024.24.3.3696
 
Publication history: 
Received on 26 October 2024; revised on 02 December 2024; accepted on 04 December 2024
 
Abstract: 
Knowledge of the periods of activity and the social structure of large carnivores constitute a challenge in African forest habitats due to their cryptic behaviour and the difficulty of observing them with traditional inventory methods such as counting along line transects and recce surveys. The present study was carried out to provide reliable information on the periods of activity and the social structure of the leopard (Panthera pardus) in a protected humid forest, the Taï National Park (TNP), in Côte d'Ivoire. Over 12 months, we installed 200 camera traps in the five sectors of the TNP. The processing of trapping data made it possible to obtain one hundred video recordings of leopard. Our observations indicate that in the TNP, the leopard has cathemeral activity, 37% of which occurs at night, 47% during the day and 16% at dusk. However, we had 31 solitary adult individuals which correspond to 60% of the overall encounter rate and twenty-one (21) individuals in groups including nine (09) groups of two individuals and a group of three individuals corresponding to 34% and 6% of the encounter rate, respectively. We conclude that the leopard leads a mainly solitary life in the TNP.
 
Keywords: 
Leopard; Taï National Park; Period of activity; Social structure
 
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Copyright information: 
Copyright © 2024 Author(s) retain the copyright of this article. This article is published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Liscense 4.0

 

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