The lioness was captured by a remote camera in February, and according to the Wildlife Conservation Society, it was a “beautiful lioness, in her prime and clearly in great health”. The image has been described as an “incredible conservation story” and is proof that the efforts to conserve wildlife populations in the region are bearing fruit.

The border region between Chad and Cameroon has suffered from poaching and habitat loss, which have contributed to the decline of the lion population. However, the governments of Chad and Cameroon have taken strong steps to protect the national parks and wildlife populations in the area, resulting in the gradual recovery of the lion population.

The lion is categorized as “Vulnerable” by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, and their populations are especially “small and fragmented” in west and central Africa. The loss of their prey, habitat loss, and killing by humans have all contributed to the population decline. Lions have fared better than some other big cats such as tigers in recent decades, but their numbers have declined by two-thirds over the past three decades in Africa. Some of their populations are now facing extinction.

The return of the lioness to Chad’s Sena Oura National Park is a positive step forward for the conservation of lions in the region. The sighting is a testament to the concerted efforts by the governments of Chad and Cameroon to protect wildlife populations, and it is hoped that more lions will return to the park in the future. As the lion population continues to decline globally, it is crucial that we take steps to protect these magnificent creatures and their habitats.

Source: WCS and government of Chad

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The research, a collaboration involving University of Queensland and Griffith University, published in Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution,and Ecological Solutions and Evidence, found that current lion counting methods for research/conservation purposes may be overestimating lion numbers and densities.

Lead author Alexander Braczkowski, formerly at University of Queensland, now a research associate at the Environmental Futures Research Institute

“African lions are one of the world’s most loved animal species and for that reason they garner both conservation attention and funding,” Mr Braczkowski said.

“Yet some experts believe their populations have experienced a 50% decline since 1994 when, coincidentally, Disney’s The Lion King was released.

“Current calculations indicate between 20,000 and 30,000 remain in the wild, scattered across 102 populations in Africa, however, our research suggests these numbers may be substantially lower.

“Most African lion abundance and density estimates are based upon track counts, audio lure surveys and expert solicitation – which are simply not informative enough to understand how lion populations are doing over time.”

According to Mr Braczkowski, as outlined in Frontiers in Ecology & Evolution, the methods being used to calculate lion abundance and density is lagging behind those adopted for other big cats, such as tigers, leopards and jaguars.

“Only by using long-term surveys using photographic methods to identify individual lions can you accurately track changes in population size, survival, density and sex-specific movements.

“Monitoring these parameters over time provides important insights into population health, that current methods like audio surveys or track counts, can’t. For example, our study demonstrated that large home ranges and skewed sex-ratios, can signal prey depletion and imminent population collapse.

“This technique, developed in the Maasai Mara by co-authors Dr Nic Elliot and Dr Arjun Gopalaswamy, compiles data on lion identities and their location, and subsequently uses power computers to determine the changes in lion density across the landscape.”

In their second research paper, Mr Braczkowski and colleagues assessed the ability of this technique to better understand the status of lions in Queen Elizabeth National Park, Uganda.

“This was the perfect place to use this approach since lions in Queen Elizabeth National Park spend a lot of their time up in trees, and it is relatively straightforward to get good pictures of them,” Mr Braczkowski.

“This lion population also carries great local tourism value, with each lion estimated to raise about USD$14,000 annually.

“Queen Elizabeth National Park is an unusual site where lions, owing to their unique tree-climbing behaviour are frequently seen by managers and tourists.”

“It is alarming to note that many continent-wide figures on African lion numbers are not backed by rigorous on-ground surveys,” said Dr Duan Biggs, a co-author on the studies from Griffith University.

“Accurate site-based estimates of lion population size are crucial to assess the effectiveness of conservation interventions.”

Mr Braczkowski and colleagues found lions in Queen Elizabeth National Park were now moving more and have larger home range sizes compared to the previous study conducted about a decade ago.

“Since larger home range sizes in big cats are often associated with lower animal densities due to less available prey, this is a concerning trend,” said Dr Arjun Gopalaswamy, a co-author and science advisor to the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Global Programs.

“There’s great value in using methods that keep track of lion populations directly and we urge conservation and research communities to cease using ad hoc, indirect methods and shift to more reliable and direct methods.”

“In light of the conservation threat due to the collapse in tourism in Africa it is now more urgent than ever to have accurate, reliable monitoring of lion numbers on the continent,” said Mr Braczkowski.

“It appears this is starting to happen, with the method being adopted by the Kenya Wildlife Service and partners to survey lions and other carnivores across Kenya.”

Source: Griffith University

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In southern Africa, 62% of leopard distribution falls outside of formally protected areas. This unprotected landscape is highly fragmented by both agriculture and urban development.

Threats to leopards include habitat fragmentation, killing for fear of livestock loss and poorly managed trophy hunting. Leopards are poached through deliberate or opportunistic poisoning and wire-snaring. Their body parts are also illegally traded for traditional medicine and cultural attire.

Conservationists are concerned that these threats contribute to the overall decline in leopard numbers. Conserving leopards successfully requires us to track population numbers and trends. However, leopards are notoriously elusive and occur at low densities, which makes monitoring difficult.

Threats to many wild cat populations across southern Africa are often age and sex-biased. How these threats influence leopard behaviour is poorly understood.

The research

Our study explored the long-term genetic costs of exploitation-driven changes in the behaviour of leopards. To do this we compared the social and genetic structure of two well-studied populations in South Africa; a protected population and one recovering from over-exploitation since 2005, where 50% of leopard deaths were human-related.

Using GPS collars, guide sightings and genetic samples, we gathered over 15 years of data to reconstruct home ranges and family pedigrees for 150 leopards across both reserves. This allowed us to examine the behaviour of related individuals over multiple generations, with and without exploitation.

Typically, female leopards establish territories close to their mothers, while males settle away from their natal range. At sexual maturity (~3 years), sons compete with surrounding males for access to territory and mates. Often overcome by these large established males, sons are forced to disperse out of the area, creating a “genetic out-breeding effect”. By “moving out” to establish a territory away from “home”, sons avoid breeding with closely related females.

Inbreeding at the level of sisters, mothers and aunts can have severe consequences in big cats. These range from physical defects like tail “kinks”, to severe reproductive costs and even sterility.

In both populations, we found that daughters established home ranges near their mothers. Here they benefit from the resource knowledge of their mother’s territory. In the fully protected population, sons dispersed out of their maternal home ranges, moving away from closely related females.

But in the historically over-exploited population, many young males did not disperse. Instead, their newly established home ranges overlapped with those of their sisters, mothers and aunts. Here, territory “gaps”, created by the killing of large males, allowed sons to escape competition and establish territories alongside their mothers.

The problem? Males in the exploited population stopped dispersing and, as a result, destabilised the out-breeding mechanism for this population. This increased the likelihood of young males fathering cubs with closely related females.

We found evidence of this with a father-daughter and two half-sibling mating events. Known breeding pairs in this population were also highly related, the equivalent of at least half-siblings. While the overall population was growing, it retained signatures of inbreeding despite over 10 years of recovery.

What does this mean for leopard conservation?

The risk of inbreeding in small, over-exploited populations is well known. However, few studies have the necessary long-term data to demonstrate this direct link. We show clear evidence of how exploitation can disrupt the dispersal behaviour of leopards, ultimately leading to inbreeding.

Our study is among the first to demonstrate these risks in a large solitary wild cat species. We emphasise that even “recovering” populations still carry the inbreeding “scars” of historical exploitation. While reduced genetic diversity exposes populations to the challenges of future disturbances, including disease outbreak, habitat loss and climate change.

Increasing evidence suggests most leopard populations across southern Africa are threatened by exploitation. Long-term genetic costs should stimulate discussion among scientists, reserve managers and policymakers who aim to effectively conserve this species.

The recovery of leopard numbers in historically exploited protected areas is crucial to safeguarding the 62% of unprotected leopard range from loss. Promoting movement between reserves to encourage gene flow requires suitable wildlife corridors for leopards, even through already transformed land.

Left unregulated, the unsustainable exploitation of leopards will have severe ecological and evolutionary costs. We have demonstrated that removing too many individuals, especially of a particular age or sex, can destabilise a population. By changing the social dynamics of individual behaviour and this increases the chance of inbreeding.

Population monitoring of leopards indicates that habitat loss and population declines are similar to lion and rhino. Yet their silent disappearance goes largely unnoticed due to their broad distribution and elusive nature. We have only just begun to understand and effectively conserve these magnificent cats.

Vincent Naude, PhD student, University of Cape Town; Guy Balme, Honorary Research Associate, University of Cape Town, and Jacqueline Bishop, Senior Lecturer in Conservation Biology, University of Cape Town

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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