The park is a relatively flat region, with small lines of hills reaching about 200m, separated by wide floodplains which become inundated during the rains. The whole area has superficial formations of laterite and sediments over Cambrian sandstone beds, which outcrop in places, and some metamorphic rock. The park is crossed by the River Gambia and its two tributaries, the Niokolo Koba and the Koulountou.
In southeast Senegal, Niokolo-Koba National Park is one of West Africa’s finest for large mammals – a beautiful wilderness of Sudanese savannah, lakes, marshes, and Guinea forest, large and varied enough (3,300 square miles/8.500 km2) to support a variety of naturally sustained populations. Here are Africa’s largest lion and along with elephants, hippos, buffalo, leopards, giant or Derby elands, big roan antelopes with clown masks and long tasseled ears, baboons, panthers, crocodiles, honey badgers, and a variety of antelopes, among more than 80 mammal species. Green vervet (or grivet) and red colobus monkeys scream and chatter and perform remarkable aerial feats in ancient silk cotton, mahogany, and kapok trees, with troupes of chimpanzees at the northernmost point of their range.
Over 350 bird species recorded here include majestic bateleur eagles, called the world’s most beautiful raptor with brilliant rust» white and jet blаск markings; long-necked black-bellied bustards striding about grasslands with necks waving back and forth like cobras in a basket: handsome exclamatory paradise whydahs. 4.5 inches (12 cm) long, with tails more than twice that. And there’s much more, turkey-sized Abyssinian ground hornbills, violet touracos, daz¬zling multicolored red-throated bee-eaters, iridescent violet-backed starlings, blue-breasted kingfishers, white-faced tree ducks, Senegalese coucals, saddle-bill storks, and hammerheads, to mention just a few.
In the Gambia River and its tributaries are hippos and all three African crocodiles, the Nile, slender-snouted, and dwarf, plus a variety of water-oriented birds including lovely African pygmy geese with pale lime-green cheeks orange flanks and black and white faces, pink-backed pelicans, white-faced tree-ducks, curious knob-billed geese with huge combs on their upper bills, great spur-winged geese with pink bills and feet, and green-glossed black wings and mantles. This is all Niokolo-Koba National Park.
Originally, most of Niokolo-Koba National Park was covered with Sudaman dry forest. Since ancient times man has used precocious fire in the region, and abandoned villages inside the park testify former intervention of man in the forest ecosystem. Today, the vegetation is still burnt annually.
Much of the savanna vegetation at present is made up of woodland dominated by Pterocarpus erinaceus Poir. and bush savanna with Combretum glulinosum Perr. Exposed areas with crust-like horizons may be almost devoid of woody vegetation. The rivers in the study area are bordered by riparian vegetation and the valleys contain narrow gallery forest with Guinean elements such as Eiythrophteum guineense G. Don and Pseudospondias microcarpa A. Rich, intermixed with patches of bamboo (Oxyte-nanihera abyssinica Munro) and palms (Borassus aethiopum Man.). Numerous tem¬porarily inundated depressions harbour a rich aquatic flora.
Typical floodplain grasses and Soudanian gallery forest types accompany the rivers. Sedges fringe the rivers, notably Cyperus baikiei, together with aquatics such as Rotula aquatica (Ehretiaceae) and Hygrophila odara. Permanent swamps occur in sections of abandoned river bed. Here Phragmites and Typha are present, together with some swamp forest trees. The fauna is typical of a partly forested Soudanian river floodplain, but big game have been hunted to extinction in all but the protected areas. Crocodylus cataphractus, C. niloticus, Hippopotamus amphibius, Loxodonta africana, Osteolaemus tetraspis, Panthera pardus and Syncerus caffer survive in the wetland section protected in the Niokolo-Koba National Park. The park is the last refuge of the elephant in Senegal. Vervet monkeys are abundant in the gallery forest.
Traditionally, crops are cultivated on the floodplains immediately after the flood recedes each year, and cattle, sheep and goats are grazed there. The floodplains are also fished intensively. Effective protection of Niokolo-Koba since independence has resulted in this large park becoming one of the most important wildlife refuges in West Africa. It was accepted as a Biosphere Reserve and as a World Heritage Site in 1981.
The fauna of Niokolo-Koba includes major pop¬ulations of large herbivores, e.g., buffalo (sev¬eral thousand), hippopotamus, (about 1,500), giant eland and almost all of the other antelope species of West African savannas. The park also supports important populations of large carnivores such as lion, leopard, spotted hyaena and wild dog, and an outlying popu¬lation of chimpanzees at the Northwestern limit of this species’ distribution. The relatively high levels of protection and management of Niokolo-Koba National Park have enabled its populations of antelopes and most other wildlife species to flourish, but illegal hunting has severely affected the park’s small elephant pop¬ulation (reduced from 450 to about 50).
Continued effective protection and management of the national parks and reserves will be essential to maintain the current generally satisfactory conservation status of antelopes in Senegal- Niokolo-Koba National Park is vitally important for the long-term survival of savanna antelopes. Increasing vigilance will be necessary lo protect the national parks as demographic pressures lead to increasing demands for land and resources for people. Niokolo-Koba National Park, for example, could be affected adversely by the proposed con¬struction of damson the Gambia River and its tributaries and the building of a new road through the park. This park’s ele¬phant population, antelopes and other wildlife would benefit from cooperative measures with Guinea lo prevent cross-bor¬der poaching, including development of the protection and management of Guinea’s contiguous, newly gazetted Badiar National Park. Some of the other protected areas require increased staffing levels to implement greater protection and more effective management, e.g Ferlo North and Ferlo South Faunal Reserves. There is also a need lo promote public awareness of the value of parks and reserves in conserving nucleus populations of wildlife, and to promote conservation and rational utilization to ensure the continued availability of natural resources such as wildlife for the benefit of man Specific measures required to conserve individual antelope species which are threatened are discussed below…
