The Foraging of Birds on Waste-Dumps in the Campus of Yaounde University II.
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Foraging of wild birds on city waste dumps is one of the most popular forms of human-wildlife interactions in the world. The extensive bird-habitat destruction for urban development has restricted wild-bird feeding to city waste dumps in most communities in Cameroon. The objective of this study was to examine the importance of waste-dump ecology on wild-bird feeding. The research area was divided into four zones, north, south, east, and west for an effective data collection program. More so, four dumpsites were randomly selected from each zone and were visited twice a week for research data collection. On the dumps, observations were done from 7:00am-6:00pm, and the activities of all the bird species observed were recorded during the period. Additionally, the ecological conditions like the weather changes, photo-period, weight estimate of dumps, proximity of dump to residential homes, major dump materials were recorded simultaneously. The results of the study has shown a positive significant correlation on bird species and dump location r = 0.756, P = 0.000.