Habitats Map of Distributions of Key Wild Animal Species of Gambella National Park

Lack of information on habitat map of Gambella National Park had resulted in problems of identification for abundance and distribution of studied wild animal species per their habitats use in the park. Therefore, the information gathered for habitat map of key studied wild animal species of the Park, was used to fill the knowledge gap on their most preference habitat types of the Park. The specific objectives of this research were to determine the abundance and distribution of studied wild animal species in each classified habitat, to determine the density of studied wild animal species of the Park. The data were collected by lines transect method, which were conducted in both dry and wet seasons. Accordingly, six men in a queue were involved in the surveys. The front man was using a compass to lead the team in a straight line along the transects and measure the bearing of track of animals, two men were positioned in the middle and one was observed on the right side of transects while the other observed on the left side of transects and rear man was used GPS receiver and keep recording of information on observed wild animal species. The data were analyzed by GPS in which relevant attribute information of key wild animal species for both dry and wet seasons were added in attribute tables and ArcGIS desktop as shape files. The shape files for recorded wild animals were overlaid on the habitat maps. The abundance and distributions of each recorded wild animal species were analyzed and presented on habitat map. The density was analyzed by kernel density and presented the number of each species per area in square kilometres on the map. Microsoft office excel was also used to analyze the abundance of studied wild animal species per their preference habitat types. The results had shown that, the abundance and distribution of studied wild animal species to be the higher in the dry season than wet season. Among the studied wild animal species, the abundance and distribution of White eared kob in dry season was 5,442 and 150-260 individuals respectively, higher than its abundance of wet season 1,851 and distributions 101-200 individuals. The abundance and distribution of White eared kob were observed in all habitat types of the Park. However, the abundance and distributions of Nile lechwe, Buffalo, Shoe bill stork, some Tiang and elephant were observed in the wetland of the Park. The density of studied wild animal species was higher in wet season than dry season.