Population Survey

This thesis in fulfillment of the requirement for the award of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in wildlife ecology and management describes a dung count survey in Nimule National Park and adjacent buffer zone (South Sudan) conducted in 2011 - 2012. The elephant population was estimated at 118 (95% c.i. 47-297; CV 48.48%), with no significant differences between the national park and the buffer zone, which were thus reported as a single stratum with an area of 400 km². This marks an increase from a population of 69 elephants estimated for 2009. 14 transects were walked (11 were sampled twice), covering a total distance of 63.8 km. 400 m² quadrants were sampled at 100 m intervals along the transects. The effective strip width was 8.84 m. Dung decay rate was estimated retrospectively, based on monitoring of 11 dung piles that were not consumed by the wild fire that consumed 80% of the park, giving an estimate of 137.27 (95% c.i. 4.52). A dung deposition rate of 25.3 was taken from Olivier et al 2009 as derived for Maputo Elephant Reserve. Global elephant dung density was estimated at 0.06 ± 0.05 dung piles per km² with a cluster density of 4.62 ± 0.84 dung piles per km². Global elephant density for the park was estimated at 0.29 ± 0.05 elephants per km².