Intl. J. of Mol. Ecol. and Conserv. 2012, Vol. 2, No.4, 21-25
22
these resources. Newman (2004) described the
Baboon as the most common crop-raider. They go in
groups to damage large areas of crops in a single
sitting. Primates are highly intelligent animals which
work as a team. Groves (2005) reported that some will
look out for the farmers while the others feed and they
do it interchangeably. This enables them to damage
greater areas of crops than animals that feed alone.
Just knowing that farmers are experiencing crop losses
due to wildlife raiding may not necessarily give
adequate information to determine the impact on local
communities or individuals. Data on types of crop
damaged as well as estimated quantities and amount
of crop lost are of importance for effective
management of agriculture-wildlife conflict. This
paper investigated types of crop damaged by primates
in the neighborhood of Old Oyo National Park as well
as estimated the amount of losses incur due to
damages caused by primates on farmlands in the same
study area.
1
Survey methods
1.1
Study area
The study was carried out in villages bordering Old
Oyo National park, Nigeria. Old Oyo National Park
(
OONP) is one of the National parks of Nigeria,
located across northern Oyo State and southern Kwara
State, Nigeria. The park is easily accessible from
southwestern and northwestern Nigeria. The nearest
cities and towns adjoining Old Oyo National Park
include Saki, Iseyin, Igboho, Sepeteri, Tede and Igbeti
which have their own commercial and cultural
attractions for tourism.
The Park takes its name from Oyo-lle (Old Oyo), the
ancient political capital of Oyo Empire of the Yoruba
people, and contains the ruins of this city. Oyo Ile was
destroyed in the late 18
th
century by Ilorin and
Hausa/Fulani warriors at the culmination of the
rebellion of Afonja, commander of Oyo Empire's
provincial army for which he allied himself with
Hausa/Fulani Muslim jihadists. The National Park
originated in two earlier native administrative forest
reserves, Upper Ogun established in 1936 and Oyo-lle
established in 1941. These were converted to game
reserves in 1952, then combined and upgraded to the
present status of a National Park. The park covers
2 512
km
2
,
mostly of lowland plains at a height of
330
m and 508 m above sea level. The southern part is
drained by the Owu, Owe and Ogun Rivers, while the
northern sector is drained by the Tessi River. Outcrops
of granite are typical of the north eastern zone of the
park, including at Oyo-lle, with caves and rock
shelters in the extreme north. The central part of the
park has scattered hills, ridges and many rock
outcrops that are suitable for mountaineering. The
Ikere Gorge Dam on the Ogun river provides water
recreation facilities for tourists.
1.2
Methodology
Old Oyo National Park comprises of a whole lot of
communities bordering the 5 ranges (which are: Oyo
Ile, Sepeteri, Tede, Yemoso and Marguba Ranges) of
the Park. However, only two ranges were used for this
study based on the location and distribution of Primate
within the park. They are: Marguba Range
(
comprising of Abanla and Imodi villages) and
Sepeteri Range (comprising of Budo Alhaji and Fomu
villages). Thus the four villages mentioned above
were used for the study. This study was conducted in
January, 2012 and data were collected for 2011
planting seasons.
1.3
Data collection
Primary data were collected and used for the study.
Data were collected through the use of open-ended
questionnaires administered to all the affected farmers
in the study area. One hundred and thirteen (113)
questionnaires
were
administered
in
all.
Non-probability snowballing method was used in
locating and sampling affected farmers.
Snowball sampling technique is a non-probability
sampling method used when the desired sample
characteristic is rare. It may be extremely difficult or
cost prohibitive to locate respondents in these
situations. Snowball relied on referrals from initial
subjects to generate additional subjects, i.e. the
interviewer identified one or more respondent(s)
among the association who referred the interviewer to
another respondent and the chain continue like that
until the sample is exhausted or obtained. Since the
study areas are small communities, all affected farmers
were interviewed until no new referral was made.
