Assessing the Conservation Status of African lions, leopards and hyenas in Uganda

Our first and most non-invasive method to estimate lion, leopard and hyena numbers will be made from photographic mark re-sight data. We will use a three-month sample of monitoring data from the 2017 year. Every day myself and my assistant will search the study area for lions, hyenas and leopards. When animals are located the unique identity of individuals (either through body markings or whisker patterns; Elliot and Gopalaswamy 2016), a GPS location of where an individual was recorded as well as the date and time of the sighting will be recorded by an observer. A three-month sampling period has been shown to allow for adequate data sample size collection but not seriously violate the assumption of demographic closure (Alexander et al. 2015; Brassine and Parker 2015). A measure of search effort will be made through a permanent, GPS track which marks location every ten seconds (Broekhuis and Gopalaswamy 2016).