This archive of reports of wildlife surveys in Namibia aims to:
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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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.
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Analysis of largest elephant surveys ever shows stable population_but disturbing trends.pdf | 561.4 KB |
The desert-adapted lions (Panthera leo) of northwest Namibia inhabit arid and semi-arid habitats, primarily within communal conservancy lands, which they share with semi-nomadic pastoralists. Though of considerable conservation interest, no systematic population survey of these lions has previously been attempted. From 6 November 2022 to 6 January 2023, 45 trained surveyors covered approximately 40,000 km² of conservancy and government-managed lands, identifying individual lions by vibrissae (whisker-spot) patterns and other demographic indicators.
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First systematic population survey of the desert_adapted lions_northwest Namibia.pdf | 1.13 MB |
Recently introduced unmarked spatial capture–recapture (SCR), spatial mark–resight (SMR), and 2-flank spatial partial identity models (SPIMs) extend the domain of SCR to populations or observation systems that do not always allow for individual identity to be determined with certainty. For example, some species do not have natural marks that can reliably produce individual identities from photographs, and some methods of observation produce partial identity samples as is the case with remote cameras that sometimes produce single-flank photographs.
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SCR for categorically marked populations with an application to genetic capture_recapture.pdf | 2.75 MB |