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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.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| 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.
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.
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.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| First Abundance Estimates of Heavisides and Dusky Dolphin off Namibia.pdf | 5.23 MB |
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.
| Attachment | Size |
|---|---|
| Predicting large_scale habitat suitability for cetaceans off Namibia using MinxEnt.pdf | 2.91 MB |
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).
The Iona National Park covers about 15,200 km2 or 1.52 million hectares of Angola's Namibe Province in the south-western part of the country. It is the largest national park in Angola. It is bounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, an escarpment to the east that marks the beginning of the interior plateau, the Curoca River to the north, and the Cunene River to the south. It is about 200 kilometres south of the town of Namibe. Iona was proclaimed as a reserve in 1937 and upgraded to a national park in 1964.