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Namibian Wildlife Surveys archive

This archive of reports of wildlife surveys in Namibia aims to:

  • provide easy public access to published information and statistics
  • enable easy stakeholder access to recent and historical data on wildlife populations
  • provide a comprehensive archive of wildlife survey reports in Namibia

Public access to information is a vital component of ensuring community engagement in prevalent issues. Wildlife surveys are critical to determine the health of wildlife populations and determine trends over time to guide conservation and management actions. 

Wildlife surveys are done for different species using methods that are suited to counting them (e.g. by air or road) in their natural habitats. Such surveys need to be repeated over time to detect long-term trends and inform conservation managers. The Namibian government, non-governmental organisations and private reserves all conduct regular surveys covering different parts of Namibia and targeting different species. This archive will thus serve as a repository of our collective knowledge of the trends and status of a variety of species occurring throughout Namibia.

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Displaying results 1 - 9 of 9
Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) 2023. The Kavango-Zambezi transfrontier elephant survey. Conservation and the Environment in Namibia 26-31

The first flight to begin an elephant survey covering parts of Angola, Botswana, Namibia,Zambia and Zimbabwe took off from a dirt strip in Zimbabwe on 22 August 2022. The survey area, known as the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA), hosts over half of Africa's savanna elephants, which underlines the importance of the survey.

Longden EG, Elwen SH, McGovern B, James BS, Embling CB, Gridley T 2020. Mark-recapture of individually distinctive calls-a case study with signature whistles of bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) . Journal of Mammalogy 101 (5) 1289-1301

Robust abundance estimates of wild animal populations are needed to inform management policies and are often obtained through mark–recapture (MR) studies. Visual methods are commonly used, which limits data collection to daylight hours and good weather conditions. Passive acoustic monitoring offers an alternative, particularly if acoustic cues are naturally produced and individually distinctive. Here we investigate the potential of using individually distinctive signature whistles in a MR framework and evaluate different components of study design.

Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) 2020. An overview of elephant conservation and management in Namibia.

An overview of elephant conservation and management in Namibia.

Martin MJ, Gridley T, Roux J-P, Elwen SH 2020. First abundance estimates of Heaviside's (Cephalorhynchus heavisidii) and Dusky (Lagenorhynchus obscurus) dolphins off Namibia using a Novel Visual and Acoustic Line Transect Survey . Frontiers in Marine Science

Knowledge of a population’s abundance is of primary importance for conservation management. However, robust estimates of abundance are often difficult to obtain, especially for cetaceans which spend most of their lives submerged. Cetacean abundance is commonly estimated using aerial or vessel-based line transect surveys and distance sampling methods. During 2012–2014, the first line transect surveys to estimate cetacean abundance were conducted in Namibian waters.

de Rock P, Elwen SH, Roux JP, Leeney RH, James BS, Visser V, Martin MJ, Gridley T 2019. Predicting large-scale habitat suitability for cetaceans off Namibia using MinxEnt. Marine Ecology Progress Series 619 149-167

Knowledge of the occurrence and distribution of cetaceans is particularly important for conservation and management, but is still limited within Namibian waters. We collated 3211 cetacean records from the Namibian Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) for the period 2008 to 2016 and applied the principle of minimum cross entropy (MinxEnt) to predict habitat suitability. MinxEnt is a generalised form of maximum entropy modelling that allows incorporation of additional information such as sampling bias.

Augustine BC, Royle A, Murphy SM, Chandler RB, Cox JJ, Kelly MJ 2019. Spatial capture-recapture for categorically marked populations with an application to genetic capture-recapture. Ecosphere 10 (4) e02627

Recently introduced unmarked spatial capture–recapture (SCR), spatial mark–resight (SMR), and 2-flank spatial partial identity models (SPIMs) extend the domain of SCR to populations or observation systems that do not always allow for individual identity to be determined with certainty. For example, some species do not have natural marks that can reliably produce individual identities from photographs, and some methods of observation produce partial identity samples as is the case with remote cameras that sometimes produce single-flank photographs.

Elwen SH, Leeney RH, Gridley T 2019. Abundance estimates of an isolated population of common bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus in Walvis Bay, Namibia, 2008–2012 . African Journal of Marine Science (41) 61-70

The coastal population of common bottlenose dolphins Tursiops truncatus found in Namibia is regionally isolated and unique. This population faces several potential anthropogenic threats, especially in Walvis Bay, including boat-based tourism, a commercial harbour undergoing expansion, and aquaculture for oysters and mussels. Between 2008 and 2012, 238 boat-based surveys were conducted, resulting in 170 encounters with bottlenose dolphins. Overall, group sizes varied from 1 to 45 individuals (mean 10.7).

Attachment Size
Tursiops truncatus in Walvis Bay.pdf 2.67 MB
Ebedes H, Maritz N, de Jager M 1968. Interim report of aerial counts of wildlife in the Etosha National Park.
Ebedes H, Maritz N, de Jager M 1968. Interim reports on aerial counts of wildlife in Etosha National Park.

Aerial surveys of the centra] and eastern areas of the Etosha National Park were undertaken during September 1968, April 1969 and February 1970, primarily to establish the efficacy of an aeroplane in counting the larger mammals in the Park and to obtain some idea of the numbers and distribution of the various populations. Previous census methods such as road strip counts and waterhole counts were found inaccurate, unreliable and often impractical in Etosha.

Attachment Size
Etosha NP_Aerial census 1968.PDF 727.14 KB

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