DOI: 10.5061/dryad.2jm63xt3j
title: Population status of leopard in one of Africa’s largest wilderness areas and the challenge of monitoring at scale

description: Remarkably little is still understood about how the leopard (Panthera
 pardus) is faring in much of its remaining African range, despite the
 species’ importance for ecosystem function and generating funding for
 conservation via tourism. In this study, we address this knowledge gap in
 southern Tanzania’s Selous-Nyerere ecosystem, one of the largest intact
 wilderness areas on the continent, by estimating leopard population
 density via spatially explicit capture-recapture (SECR) modelling of data
 from seven camera trap surveys. Population density was highest in Nyerere
 National Park’s Matambwe sector (8.08 ± SE 1.54 adult and subadult
 leopards per 100 km2), followed by Selous Game Reserve’s Miguruwe sector
 (7.38 ± 1.26 per 100 km2); Nyerere NP’s Msolwa sector (6.05 ± 0.78 per 100
 km2); Selous GR’s Liwale sector (5.93 ± 0.88 per 100 km2), western
 Kingupira sector (5.58 ± 0.87 per 100 km2), and eastern Kingupira sector
 (5.22 ± 0.71 per 100 km2); and Nyerere NP’s Kalulu sector (3.80 ± 0.64 per
 100 km2). Together, our surveys covered an important component of extant
 leopard range in Tanzania, and our findings highlight the importance of
 the Selous-Nyerere ecosystem as a leopard stronghold. The estimates
 include the highest leopard densities yet documented in miombo woodland,
 which represents nearly one fifth of the species’ remaining African range.
 Unlike lion, leopard population density was highly correlated with
 relative abundance of preferred prey. Although limited by a small number
 of data points, this suggests that the two species may not be uniformly
 affected by anthropogenic threats. Threats to leopard in Selous-Nyerere
 include accelerating habitat conversion in boundary areas and bushmeat
 poaching, which impacts leopard indirectly by suppressing prey populations
 and directly via accidental snaring. Practical implication: Placed in the
 context of range-wide leopard monitoring, this study highlights the need
 to address persistent knowledge gaps on the species’ continental status
 and prioritise sites for monitoring based on their potential to inform
 evidence-based conservation management.
description: # Population status of leopard in one of Africa’s largest wilderness areas
 and the challenge of monitoring at scale Dataset DOI:
 [10.5061/dryad.2jm63xt3j](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2jm63xt3j) ##
 Description of the data and file structure This dataset consists of input
 files (trap layouts and capture histories) for R package secr to estimate
 population density of leopard (*Panthera pardus*) from camera trap surveys
 in Tanzania's Selous-Nyerere ecosystem. *
 Selous-Nyerere_leopard_density_Input_files_202510.zip A zipped folder
 containing input files required to model leopard population density for
 seven surveys conducted from 2020-2022 in Tanzania's Selous-Nyerere
 ecosystem, via maximum-likelihood-based SECR analysis using package *secr*
 version 4.6.0 (Efford, 2024a) in R version 4.3.3 (R Core Team, 2024). For
 each survey, the zipped folder contains a capture history detailing the
 individual, sampling occasion (24 hour period, from midday to midday),
 detector (camera trap station), and sex for all independent capture
 events, and a trap layout detailing the location of each detector (camera
 trap station) and whether it was active or inactive on each sampling
 occasion (Efford, 2024b).