Yankari

Yankari Game Reserve is home to Nigeria’s largest savannah elephant population, with an estimated 100 individuals remaining after years of poaching pressure. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has managed Yankari since 2014 in collaboration with Bauchi State Government, during which time the poaching threat has been successfully reduced; and since 2014 only four cases of elephant poaching have been recorded.  The ECF has provided five grants for WCS’s work in Yankari. ECF funding has supported ranger training and vehicles, allowing the professionalization and expansion of the reserve’s law-enforcement team. The ECF has also funded the installation of a digital radio network, taking communications coverage across the entire reserve. As the elephant population has stabilised, elephants have been moving outside the reserve and coming into conflict with farmers on the periphery. They are in danger of being shot, not so much for their ivory as in retaliation for the damage they have caused to farms. With ECF support, WCS fitted six elephants with satellite collars to find out exactly where they were moving, and to allow targeted elephant security operations. Levels of human-elephant conflict (HEC) have further increased as more people farm closer to the edge of the reserve. Our current grant to Yankari is funding HEC mitigation in two of the most impacted communities, including building watchtowers and beehive fences, and rangers responding to HEC incidents.