Leopard Panthera pardus density in southern Mozambique: evidence from spatially explicit capture–recapture in Xonghile Game Reserve


PAO LO S TRAMPELLI,LEAH ANDRES E N,KRISTOFFE R T. E VERAT T MIC H A E L J. SOMER S and J . MARCUS ROWC L IFFE


Abstract Rigorous status estimates of populations of large carnivores are necessary to inform their management and help evaluate the effectiveness of conservation interven- tions. The African leopard Panthera pardus faces rising anthropogenic pressures across most of its contracting sub-Saharan range, but the scarcity of reliable population es- timates means that management decisions often have to rely on expert opinion rather than being based on sound evi- dence. This is particularly true for Mozambique, where little is known about the ecology or conservation status of leopard populations as a result of prolonged armed conflict. We used camera trapping and spatially explicit capture– recapture models to provide a leopard density estimate in Xonghile Game Reserve in southern Mozambique, which is part of the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier con- servation initiative. The estimated population density was 2.60 ± SE 0.96 leopards/100 km2. Our study provides a baseline leopard density for the region and the first empir- ical density estimate for southern Mozambique. Our results also suggest that currentmethods used to set trophy hunting quotas for leopards, both in Mozambique and elsewhere in Africa, may be leading to unsustainable quotas, which high- lights the importance of robust empirical data in guiding conservation policy.


Keywords Camera trap, density estimation, leopard, Mozambique, Panthera pardus, SECR, spatially explicit capture–recapture, trophy hunting


Introduction


he leopard Panthera pardus is categorized as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. Its risk of extinction is particularly high in fragmented landscapes because of low


T


PAOLO STRAMPELLI (Corresponding author) Department of Zoology, Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, Abingdon Road, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX13 5QL, UK. E-mail paolo.strampelli@gmail.com


LEAHANDRESEN,KRISTOFFER T. EVERATT andMICHAEL J. SOMERS Centre for Wildlife Management, Mammal Research Institute & Centre for Invasion Biology, University of Pretoria, Pretoria, South Africa


J. MARCUS ROWCLIFFE Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London, UK


Received 24 June 2017. Revision requested 13 September 2017. Accepted 15 January 2018. First published online 7 September 2018.


densities, large spatial requirements and potential for con- flict with humans (Nowell & Jackson, 1996; Balme et al., 2010). Leopard populations in Africa are increasingly threa- tened by increasing anthropogenic pressures, leading to concern for the conservation of the species and calls for re- liable population estimates to inform conservation manage- ment (Jacobson et al., 2016). In the absence of robust population estimates, management decisions often rely on expert opinion rather than being based on sound evidence, making it difficult to identify areas of concern, prioritize conservation investments, or evaluate the effectiveness of interventions (Gray & Prum, 2012; Balme et al., 2014). Density estimation, such as with capture–recapture mod-


elling, has become a key process in wildlife ecology, conser- vation and management (Gray & Prum, 2012). Initially, capture–recapture techniques estimated abundance rather than density, and relied on estimating the survey’s effective sampled area to obtain the latter. However, no theoretical basis exists for this process, and the reliability of this ap- proach is therefore questionable (Efford, 2004; Borchers & Efford, 2008;Royle et al., 2009). Recently developed method- ologies, known as spatially explicit capture–recapture, over- come these issues by estimating density directly as an explicit parameter (Efford, 2004; Royle et al., 2009). Since their first application to tiger populations in India


(Karanth, 1995), capture–recapture techniques have been employed to obtain density estimates of most large carni- vores, including leopards in several African countries, such as South Africa (Balme et al., 2009; Chase Grey et al., 2013; Swanepoel et al., 2015), Gabon (Henschel et al., 2011) and Namibia (Stein et al., 2011). Nevertheless, there is still a paucity of such data across much of the continent, pre- cluding effective conservation management (Balme et al., 2014). In Mozambique armed conflicts during much of the latter half of the 20th century have contributed to signifi- cant declines in wildlife populations (Hatton et al., 2001) and have hindered conservation, and there has been little re- search conducted on the status, distribution or ecology of the leopard. Leopards can be legally hunted for trophies in several lo-


cations in Mozambique, with the current annual quota set at 120 permits (CITES, 2007). This quota is based on an esti- mation of the overall abundance of leopards in Mozambique by Martin & deMeulenaer (1988), who employed a predict- ive model, estimating a population of 37,542 leopards in the


Oryx, 2020, 54(3), 405–411 © 2018 Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605318000121


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