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University of Colorado At Boulder

Publication Date

Spring 2014

Program Name

Tanzania: Wildlife Conservation and Political Ecology

Abstract

As the population in Tanzania continues to grow more people are in search of jobs. In Northern Tanzania a village named Mto Wa Mbu is conveniently located directly adjacent to Lake Manyara National Park. With its good location and weather for crops, many people have moved there in hopes to earn some money from the 1 million tourists that visit Tanzania per year. As more people move to Mto Wa Mbu the pressure between animals and the people has increased. With the national park directly across the street from housing both animals and people can easily access each other’s homes. Because of Mto Wa Mbu’s unique situation there are four intra habitats within the village: road, riverine forest, crops, and human habitation. Both animals and people have access to all of them, and this leads to the purpose of this study. For 16 days this study was conducted in Mto Wa Mbu to determine if the Papio Anubis in Mto Wa Mbu altered their behaviors depending on the habitat they were in. The Olive Baboons were observed for 8.5 hours a day, for a total of 301 scans, or 99.3 hours of data collected. There were a total of 3,772 behaviors recorded of the following behaviors: eating, moving, resting, vigilance, aggression/submission, affiliative. The Baboons spent the most time along the road (161/301) and the least time in the crops (4/301). Chi-square analysis tests were run on both dependence of sub-group on time of day and dependence of behaviors by habitat (α=.05). For the intra habitat crops there were only four scans completed and therefore the dependence of behaviors on habitat was insignificant (0.424102878). The p-value for subgroups and time of day was not possible to calculate. For all other habitats the statistical results show there was a dependence of behavior on habitats (Road: 6.95245E- 16, Human habitation: 1.82021E-07, Riverine Forest: 7.52825E-07). After the analysis was done to see if each subgroup’s behaviors depended on time of day, the results showed that for all subgroups in all habitats it was statistically significant. (Road: F: 1.50161E-09M: 0.001919273 S: 1.30467E-06)(HH: F: 0.013950191, M: 0.037778075, S: 0.017654723) (Riverine: F: 4.33703E-13, M: 1.11036E-07, S: 3.60406E-05). Learning more about these Baboons can help in the future with issues related to human-wildlife interface. This study has shown the human wildlife conflict will continue to be a growing issue in Mto Wa Mbu and can only be solved if the people are educated on the importance of the animals, or the National Park border in Mto Wa Mbu is more highly regulated.

Disciplines

Community-Based Research | Natural Resources and Conservation | Natural Resources Management and Policy | Tourism

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