New findings from country’s biggest ever carnivore count

For nearly 15 years, there was almost no information available on the population of Uganda’s large non -vegetarian population, including its largest national park, Merchason Falls. These species represent an important part of the growing tourism economy of Uganda. Country is the home of lions climbing a famous tree, which are very sought for this Unique behaviorTogether, lions and leopards produce Thousands of dollars annually annually From safari watching and related activities.

A monitoring of the cosmic award may not be more important for the country. When the strictness of wildlife is not monitored, the population may disappear within a few years, as the tigers did In Sariska Tiger Reserve of India,

But many people working in protection discourage surveillance. He argues that a “bean counter” approach for protection Ignores funds and tasks He saves animals. Other people just say that it is one Hard to do on scale And especially for animals who are naturally shy, there are large home boundaries (sometimes in many countries), and in very small numbers.

Even in a comparatively small African country -Ganda 32nd place Of the 54 countries in size- how a enough land covers, how to see the population of non-vegetarian people? This has been a challenge of our work in Uganda for almost a decade, monitoring African lions, leopards and spots.

In our two recent studies Merchason falls And Six protected area Demand to address the problem by drawing on a wide range of local and international experts living and working across Uganda across the country. While working with the Uganda Wildlife Authority Research and Monitoring Team of the Government of Uganda, we determine to identify and bring independent scientists, government Rangers, university students, lodge owners and conservation managers in the country’s major savanna parks.

We hoped to cover more land with people and organizations that would not traditionally work together. By doing this, many of these individuals were first exposed to science and field skills, which is necessary to build strong, long -term monitoring programs for danger wildlife.

The result is the largest, most broad count of African lions, leopards and spotted hyena. We found that spotted hyenas are doing far better than our expectations. But there is a concern for the decline in lions, it shows that there is a need to focus on conservation efforts. Furthermore, our count has proved the value of cooperation when it comes to generating data that can help save animals.

Our unique approach

Inspired by kenya First nationwide, science based survey Lions and other non -vegetarians in the major reserves, the first important step of this study was to secure the cooperation of the office of Research and Monitoring of Uganda Wildlife Authority. Together, we identified important conservation stakeholders in six protected areas. These pians are UP Wildlife Reserve, Kidpo Valley, Toro Semaliki, Lake Amboro, Queen Elizabeth and Murchison Falls. Leopards and hyena are in some other parks (such as Mount Elgon and Rainzori National Parks), but the lack of resources prevented us from surveying these sites.

We did not have any guess who can participate in our non -vegetarian surveys or do, only that we wanted people to be closest to these species in the room.

We shortlisted lodge owners, government Rangers, independent scientists, university students, NGO employees and even trophy hunters. All came together for a few days, to know how to find non -vegetarian in each scenario, build a history of detection and analyze data. We gave five technical workshops, showing the participants how to find the African lions in the landscape together with mapping -where they went where they went.

We also taught the participants:

• How to identify lions by their mustache spots in high-language photographs-these are small spots where a cat mustache is produced on their cheek
• How to determine the identity in the camera trap images of leopard and spotted high body flax
• Post data collection analysis technique
• A technique for estimating population density and abundance.

More than 100 Uganda and international colleagues appeared in the “All Hands on Deck” survey, driving more than 26,000 km and 7,516 camera trap nights recording from 232 places spread in a year from January 2022 to January 2023.

Our scientific approach focused on how to get the best possible calculation of non -vegetarian people. In this process we identified something The biggest shortcomings of previous surveysThese fail to include dual count and possibility of detection of individual animals. Worse, the bus was connecting all individual views and not generating any local-level projections.

What our results tell us

As expected, our results painted a serious picture in some areas, but marked hope for others.

• In the royal Murchason Falls National Park, through which the Neel River runs in the east-west, we estimated that about 240 lions still remain in the area of ​​some 3,200kmm samples. It is the highest number in Uganda and is at least five to 10 times more than Kidpo and Queen Elizabeth parks.
• In Queen Elizabeth National Park, the house of trees climbing lions, we found more than 40% from our final (left only 39 persons in 2,400kmm). survey In 2018.
• North of the country, in the Kidpo Valley, the best estimate is only 12 individual lions in 1,430km M, the opposite is Previous estimate of 132 lions It was implemented about 15 years ago.

In contrast, leopards appear to continue on high density in select areas, showing a strong population with lake MBuro and Murchison falls. The Ishasha region of Pian UPE and Rani Elizabeth recorded the lowest density.

Spotted Hine has proved far more flexible. Those surveyed sites are at density from 6.15 to 45.31 persons/100 km moth. In Queen Elizabeth, their number may increase as a decline in the lion’s population, less competition and illegal pressure are likely to be caused by targeted lions.

These findings outline the immediate requirement of targeted conservation interventions, especially for lions in the struggling population of Uganda.

Prices beyond number

Our approach shared the weight of data collection, and gave people the opportunity and skills to engage in wildlife science. For many emerging protectionists in the country, this was his first time to be a writer on a scientific paper (a rapidly important component of postgraduate degree applications). Even if we work with those with whom he disagreed to save the large carnivorous in Uganda, then at least they could agree on how many hands they had in collecting data and examining it. Since we have adopted a fully science-based approach, we believe that our surveys should also improve over time.

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