What is being touted as the largest, most comprehensive count of African lions in Uganda has painted a grim picture in some areas and a marked hope for others. That is according to a report by three of the lead participants in the survey carried out by more than 100 Ugandan and international collaborators, driving over 26,000km and recording 7,516 camera trap nights from 232 locations spanning a year from January 2022 to January 2023. The surveys were done in six of Uganda's most important protected areas for large carnivores in terms of protected area size, and historic presence of carnivores: the Kidepo Valley National Park (1430 sq km), Pian Upe Wildlife Reserve (2400 sq km), Murchison Falls National Park (4000 sq km), Toro Semliki Wildlife Reserve (542 sq km), the Queen Elizabeth Conservation area (comprising the National Park and its associated wildlife reserves 2400 sq km), and Lake Mburo National Park (376 sq km). Lions are listed as critically endangered on the national red list of Uganda and are known to occur in three of its largest national parks; Murchison Falls, Queen Elizabeth and the Kidepo Valley. The Queen Elizabeth Conservation Area (QECA); comprising the National Park and the Kyambura and Kigezi Game Reserves, has been viewed as one of Uganda's lion strongholds. But the report that was published in the online academic journal, The Conversation, on March 25 by Alexander Richard Braczkowski, Arjun M. Gopalaswamy, and Duan Biggs paints a grim picture about lions in the QECA. It says only 39 lions are in the Queen Elizabeth National Park, home to the tree-climbing lions. They say this is a marked decline of over 40% since their last survey in 2018. In the country's Northeast, in Kidepo Valley, the best estimate is just 12 individual lions across 1,430km², in stark contrast with the previous estimate of 132 lions implemented nearly 15 years ago.