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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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We compiled data from our research (2006-2025) along with published accounts dating back to 1975 on the desert-dwelling elephant population in our study area of Skeleton Coast National Park and western Kunene region. This includes the Hoarusib River, Hoanib River, and Uniab River sub populations. Our analysis of the data reveal the profound influence that human-caused elephant mortality has had on the population over this time period. An initial precipitous decline occurred due to wartime poaching in the 1980s.
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| Status and distribution of desert_dwelling elephants in the Hoarusib_Hoanib_and Uniab River_2025.pdf | 628.13 KB |
The following data on elephants of the Hoarusib, Hoanib, and Uniab river drainages is based on exact counts of known individuals from our photo ID database.
Numbers of elephants counted by Nad Brain and NamPol observers between 16 -31 Dec 2021 as part of antipoaching surveillance work. The unstructered aerial search counts focussed on the river systems and were done from the Westair / NCE Cessna 182 V5 –IIM flying out of Palmwag airfield and using SRT's base camp Ma – I – Go. It was not possible to record demographics of the herds, but did count bulls individually. The bulls are in addition to the herd numbers.
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| Informal aerial elephant counts in Kunene Dec 2021.pdf | 45.88 KB |
In the Hoarusib River, a third of the remaining elephant population was lost in 2019. From a total of 16 elephants in 2018, there are now only 11 that remain. All the elephants were in poor condition due to the extensive drought that has affected the region and killed most of the cattle. The ongoing drought, in combination with continuing human-wildlife conflict, has had a serious impact on elephants and other wildlife species as well.
We compiled data from our research (2006-2018) along with published accounts dating back to 1975 on the desert-dwelling elephant population in our study area of Skeleton Coast National Park and western Kunene region. This includes the Hoarusib-Hoanib, and Uniab subpopulations. Our analysis of the data reveal the profound influence that humancaused mortality has had on the population. An initial precipitous decline occurred due to wartime poaching (1980s).
Modern works on the distribution of Ungulate Mammals in South West Africa are those of Wilhelm (1931), Shortridge (1934) and Bigalke (1958). Older accounts are those of Fischer (1914) and that published by the German Colonial Office in 1913. The purpose of the present study has been to determine the distribution and approximate sizes of the populations of Kudu, Gemsbok, Springbok, Eland, Hartebeest and Hartmann's Mountain Zebra primarily in the farming areas of the Territory, but including also the distribution in the Bantu Reserves within the border of the Police Zone (Fig. 1…