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New research comparing data from the two largest-ever elephant surveys reveals the overall population in the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area is stable, but also uncovers some concerning local trends. Elephant numbers in Botswana, home to more elephants than any other country, are stable overall, but declining numbers in areas where hunting is permitted, and increasing numbers in protected areas, suggest underlying issues for Botswana's elephants.

In 2022, an aerial survey for African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) was conducted over the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) in southern Africa. KAZA is a 520,000-km² network of protected areas in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. The aerial survey found that KAZA holds ~228,000 elephants, confirming that this is the world’s largest population of savanna elephants and a critical stronghold for this endangered species.

The survey took two hours 54 minutes, which translates into a search rate of 1.6 km/min. The flight path was recorded on the GPS tracklog and is shown in Figure 2 (deviations from the transects are where rhino, elephant or large herds of animals were encountered). A total of 253 sightings were recorded during this time (Figure 3) which comprised 1539 animals of seventeen species (Table 1). Kaross game camp is 144 km² in size so the density of animals calculates to 10.7 animals/km². The distribution and herd size for selected species is shown in Figure 4 to Figure 11.