|Scientific Name:||Cephalophus silvicultor|
|Species Authority:||(Afzelius, 1815)|
|Red List Category & Criteria:||Least Concern ver 3.1|
|Assessor/s:||IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group|
|Reviewer/s:||Mallon, D.P. (Antelope Red List Authority) & Hoffmann, M. (Global Mammal Assessment)|
Listed as Least Concern as the species is widespread and reasonably common, with a total population estimated at more than 150,000 individuals. However, if present trends continue, the yellow-backed duiker’s distribution will become increasingly fragmented and its status will eventually become threatened. Its long-term survival will depend on effective protection of key areas in the equatorial forest and savanna woodland zones of West and Central Africa, as national parks and equivalent reserves and effectively managed hunting zones.
|Range Description:||The Yellow-backed Duiker has the widest distribution of the forest duikers, ranging from south-western Senegal through all West African countries to south-western Sudan and south-west Uganda, south to northern Angola (including Cabinda) and Zambia; they also occur in the Mau forest in south-west Kenya (Kingdon and Lahm in press). They are now considered extinct in The Gambia (East 1999), although whether they actually ever formerly occurred is uncertain (Grubb et al. 1998). They were thought to have been extirpated from Rwanda (East 1999), but have been confirmed as surviving in the Nyungwe Forest (F. Mulindahabi and A. Vedder pers. comm.).|
Native:Angola (Angola); Benin; Burkina Faso; Burundi; Cameroon; Central African Republic; Congo; Congo, The Democratic Republic of the; Côte d'Ivoire; Equatorial Guinea; Gabon; Ghana; Guinea; Guinea-Bissau; Kenya; Liberia; Nigeria; Rwanda; Senegal; Sierra Leone; Togo; Uganda; Zambia
|Range Map:||Click here to open the map viewer and explore range.|
|Population:||Density estimates are summarized by East (1999), Wilson (2001) and Kingdon and Lahm (in press). East (1999) produced a total population estimate of about 160,000. The population trend is generally decreasing, except for some areas where hunting pressures are low because of low human populations and/or effective protection against poaching.|
|Habitat and Ecology:||Throughout most of its range it occurs in moist lowland and montane forests, forest-savanna mosaics, riverine forests gallery forest, thickets and isolated forest patches within moist savanna woodlands; also present in secondary forest, plantations and farm bush (East 1999; Kingdon and Lahm in press).|
|Major Threat(s):||In much of its range, especially outside protected areas, it has been reduced to low numbers or eliminated by forest destruction, and encroachment of human settlements, coupled with uncontrolled hunting for bushmeat. The species was formerly subject to strict taboos that once protected it in some parts of its range, and it is still considered a non-preferred game species in some areas; however, many of these taboos have broken down.|
About one-third of this estimated population occurs within protected areas, including several in West Africa and Lobeke (Cameroon), Odzala and Nouabale-Ndoki (Republic of Congo), Bangassou (Central African Republic), Monte Allen N.P. (Equatorial Guinea), Bwindi and Queen Elizabeth N.P. (Uganda), Kafue and Kasanka (Zambia), and Ituri (DR Congo) in Central Africa (East 1999; Kingdon and Lahm in press).
Listed on CITES Appendix II.
|Citation:||IUCN SSC Antelope Specialist Group 2008. Cephalophus silvicultor. In: IUCN 2012. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. Version 2012.2. <www.iucnredlist.org>. Downloaded on 21 May 2013.|
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