INTRODUCTION

Crop raiding is when animals of different types come out of their specific area of living and enter peoples crops around that particular place and destroy them or feed on them. Though animals in Budongo Forest Reserve have a lot of different species of plants to feed on in their habitats, they also pick interest of going into peoples gardens to raid different varieties planted by communities who cultivate and live around the forest edges.

In most cases these animals come for specific species of crops not only the ones planted in the garden seasonally like maize, beans, soya beans, water melon, okra, and eggplant, but also fruit trees, bananas, sugar canes etc around peoples homesteads.  

Then also these animals they come for different crop varieties and different plants of these crops and stages of growth they tend to feed on. Some feed on young germinating crops, others feed on young leaves, young fruits, mature fruits, ripe fruits, young stems, seeds, both young and mature, and pith which is the inner part of a plant.

The crop raiding is becoming one of the major problems around Budongo forest reserve because these animals not only destroy or come for crops grown near forest edge but also they go to their home steads of the communities who live around the forest reserve edge and raid their plants and further from that also grab their domestic animals and birds. These animals not only cause harm to the communities who live around the Budongo forest reserve edges, but also they are harmed when they come to raid either for example by community members using man trips, setting snares, bows and arrows, and also poising them from the food they eat.  

The increase in crop raiding is due to several reasons. One is that the habitats to these animals have been tampered with a lot. The communities living around the forest edges and others who live further from the forest they can come in the forest directly or use money to provide machines and pay to other people whom they can use to work for them in cutting the forest trees for timbers, charcoal, hoe handles, and also pick materials of their choice like ratan canes, climbers etc. This has reduced on the food quantity for these animals in the forest and then also their settlement has been displaced due to disappearance of the forest. That forces the animals to come out almost every day for food.

In 2015-2017 Budongo conservation field station in partnership with communities around Budongo forest reserve established a buffer zone cropping demonstration garden near the forest edges which was done to find out which varieties of crop are mainly destroyed by the animals that are living by Budongo forest reserve. At that time, I as Asua Jackson participated in the data collection fully from the start of the project until the end which was done within a period of several years. We aimed to find out which plants are raided and which ones are not raided so that communities living around the forest reserve areas can continue growing them. Then the communities living around Budongo forest edge reserve were told to grow the crops that are not destroyed by these animals and they where also trained on how to plant them agriculturally by BCFS and MADFA (Masindi farmers association) members.

DATA COLLECTION

The information collected on crop raiding by Budongo Conservation Field Station (BCFS) was then by the field assistants and ever monitored by BCFS senior staffs from the beginning to the end and also some information are my individual observations since I was one of the field assistants during the exact period of the demo garden established by BCFS and communities. The data collection was done from the first day of the planting of the crop until the harvest was done and also between the hours of 6 am to 6 pm. The determination to know which animal crop raided was mostly using footprints. Each plot was checked properly starting from the forest edge at zero meters to a hundred meters and entered in a data sheet by interval of 10 meters.

 The crop raiding around Budongo forest reserve is continuously throughout the year because Budongo forest is a tropical rain forest where a lot of rain fall is received in two different periods in the year though there is also dry season which is twice in a year from the beginning of the year in January to mid-March and then mid-year from July to August. Even though these days the weather changes are unpredictable, still it has favoured different varieties of crops to be cultivated around Budongo forest reserve areas by the communities including seasonal crops like maize, beans, soya beans, water melon, okra and also cash crops like sugar canes that are continuously grown throughout the year. By doing the continuous planting of the different varieties of crops the communities around the Budongo forest reserve we can decide to look for measures on how to reduce the crop raiding in the farm and gardens by using several ways like constructing a small house near the forest edges in between crops planted and forest to either keep their the whole day and night scaring the animals away until harvesting or making some light of fire in the side of the house for scaring the animals away, then also using scare crows at the edges of the farm or garden and inside depending on the type of crop planted. Some decide on setting traps near the edges of the farms or gardens and then others use harmful equipment like dogs, catapult, bows and arrows, pangas, spears and guns (used by UWA game rangers to scared animals like buffalos or baboons and elephants) for either scaring them away or killing them. Not only that but also others can poison food for these wild animals before they come for them.

Due to these complaints BCFS decided to establish a buffer zone cropping demonstration gardens in different villages that are within the areas of operation of BCFS to be sure of which varieties of crops are suitable for the communities having around Budongo forest reserve areas.

Then they decided to get a plot of land in difference forest edge villages and then in these plots they decided to get around ten different varieties of crops. Then the plot was subdivided into ten small plots at list each plot was 10 meters horizontally from forest edges then each 10 meter to a hundred meter plot was sub-divided into ten meters starting from the forest edges by use of pages that are labelled with figures of 0-100m until the end of an hundred meters which makes the data collection simple. 

RESULTS

We observed crop raiding on soya bean from the demo farm has been the fasted raided crop and was most raided by the baboons because they start the raiding of it actually the day of it being planted since they feed on the seeds and they will dig it from the soil. They will also feed on it after germination if the baboons when they will feed on the stem and young leaves. They will leave the farmer with nothing if they come in large numbers and are not chased away so communities were advised not to deal in cultivating it near the forest edge but maybe further from the forest reserve.

 The observation on watermelons was something of surprise because within the first two years of the planting of watermelon no crop raiding has been determined but at third year of demo crop planting baboons learnt about watermelons and finally started raiding it and then the communities were advised not to cultivate it near the forest reserve edges.

 Okra was been raided by the bush pigs not during the day time but by night hours which has been determined by the remains of the foot print in the garden. Then the communities where also told not to cultivate it near the forest reserve edges but maybe far away

Baboons were the ones that mainly raided the eggplant but they just moistly destroy it because you can not see them eating it but getting the fruit, opening it, and throwing it because they thought that it is edible. They will continue destroying it they are not sent away. The communities were therefore told not to plant it near the forest reserve edges but maybe further from the forest edges and the same case with cabbages.

The rice also raided was by baboons feeding on the stems and seeds when matured but farmers mostly do not realise that because they always have a lot of work to do in the rice garden, because they need to make sure that the garden is clean and also chase birds away from their rice garden until harvest but then the decision was not easily made the farmers continue growing it

The observation of crop raiding on crop like onion, nakati, carrots and green pepper where observed within the three years were not been raided by any animals.

The observation other crops that are not part of the demo garden like maize, sweet potato, bananas, sugarcane, jackfruit, mango and cassava which are some of the most raided crops within Budongo forest reserve areas have just become part of the normal diet for these wild animals in Budongo forest reserve. Mostly these cropy are raided daily at least from different parts of the villages around the forest reserve and by different wild animals like baboons monkeys, chimpanzee, and bush pigs. On top of that some of these wild animals like bush pig came for crop raiding at night and for them they are also none selective and also some time the chimpanzee tend to use the moon-light to come for plants like maize and mango during night hours and raid them whenever these plant are at a distance which is not away from the forest reserve.

DISCUSSION

The crop raiding within Budongo forest reserve area has been continuous since the early years of people starting to cultivate crops around the forest reserve areas mostly by bush pigs at night hour as well as baboons who will raid during day time and also chimpanzees and other monkeys.

The crop raiding by other animals started decreasing the example of bush pigs when some people came with techniques of killing them by use of snare trap, man trap, and hunting them to reduce on their number. By killing these bush pigs they were not only doing away with them but also benefitting from their meat which encouraged them to go further for other animals too that also reduced on the diversity of the wild animals and losing of other species completely within the area of operation in Budongo forest reserve. The fact that bush pigs are reducing in numbers showing us that the human wildlife conflict is increasing which might lead to loss of other wildlife.

 We have learnt that sometimes these wild animals can raid crops after these crops are exposed to them near their habitats. The main example was watermelons which were not crop raided within the first two years but by the third year of being planted in the farm began to have been raided by baboons. That means they can maybe also learn either from us as humans eating it or because they have the crop available and they keep on checking on it the way people in the communities living around Budongo forest reserve say that chimpanzee mostly learn how to harvest some of the crops from humans. This suggests it is good to make sure that you are not exposing the harvest to the wild animals especially primates so they do not realise they can feed on these crops.

CONCLUSION

I have really seen that crop raiding is creating more conflicts in between wildlife and humans, whereby both sides need to be supported by looking for solutions of stopping crop raiding. We are losing these animals from bad ways of handling the issues of crop raiding by killing these animals. I think I call upon us who are learnt to give more hand in this situation because it is a long term running issue.

CITE AS

Asua, J. (2024). Crop Raiding Around Budongo Forest Reserve Edges by Animals (Vol. 2, Number 1). Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.11115887