Abstract
Effective conservation measures for West African manatee in Nigeria have been very slow in progression. This study provides information on the conservation status of West African manatee through the determination of the abundance, seasonal movement and encounter rate of manatee in Pandam Lake. The visual non-motorized boat point scan survey was adopted for this study. Six transect lines were established. Two lines run along the shores/banks of the Lake, Gurugun (GU), and Zuzurfa (ZU); one line each at the main Lake (ML) and manatee stream (MS). Point scans were conducted on each transect line one day per week and thrice daily ( 6-10am, 11-3pm,4-7pm) 3months each, both in the rainy and dry seasons for two years (2011-2012). Population estimation was done using outer-bound method. Manatees were sighted 21 times through both direct (5 times) (23.81%) and indirect (16 times) (76.19%) means. Eighteen (85.71%) of the sightings were recorded in the dry season with a probability of 0.15 and 3 (14.29%) recorded in the wet season with a probability of 0.02. Manatees were mostly sighted in a group of 2-4individuals sighting of one manatee is rare. The population estimate is 5 individuals. All the direct sighting of manatees occurred between 18-20hr, while the indirect sightings varied. Manatees were encountered 6 times (10%) and 15 times (25%) in the year 2011 and 2012 respectively with probability values of 0.25 and 0.1 respectively. The daily probability of encountering manatee varies from 0.0 to 0.52. The park should be taken over by the Federal government and there should be collaborative management of natural resources through a participatory approach with the local communities.
Key Words: Conservation status, African Manatee, Abundance and Distribution, Collaborative management
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