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So, how many elephants is too many elephants? It's a question people have wrestled with for ages. Kruger National Park, home to one of Africa's largest elephant populations, has seen their numbers grow from just a handful in the early 1900s to over 31,000 by 2020. That's a lot of elephants! A recent study using smarter aerial surveys and fancy math gives us a more clear picture of just how fast these gentle giants are multiplying. Turns out, since 2013, their numbers have been growing by about 5.3% each year.

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.

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.

African elephants (Loxodonta africana) are imperiled by poaching and habitat loss. Despite global attention to the plight of elephants, their population sizes and trends are uncertain or unknown over much of Africa. To conserve this iconic species, conservationists need timely, accurate data on elephant populations. Here, we report the results of the Great Elephant Census (GEC), the first continent-wide, standardized survey of African savannah elephants. We also provide the first quantitative model of elephant population trends across Africa.

Modern faunal communities in South West Africa/Namibia - A census of mammals in 16 districts in South West Africa/Namibia was undertaken by Joubert and Mostert. These were distributed in northern, central, and southern S.W.A., and varied in area from approximately 20 000 to 60 000 km². Despite the uncertainties and limitations of this census, the data provide useful information on distribution patterns, relative abundances and species diversity.