CONSERVATION SCIENCE
ZCP relies on research and monitoring to guide conservation efforts effectively. With field-based operations year-round, we study animal groups and broader landscapes across diverse ecosystems. Collaborations with local and international partners are key to addressing conservation challenges. This approach helps us understand species behavior in different environments, informing better conservation decisions.
LEADING CONSERVATION SCIENCE IN AFRICA’S ECOSYSTEMS
Our Conservation Science work in 2023 encompassed some of Africa’s most comprehensive studies – spanning nearly 40,000 km2 across 5 ecosystems, 7 national parks, and 8 Game Management Areas as well as multiple corridors and Transfrontier Conservation Areas, with long-term intensive studies of 15 different populations and over 1,150 individuals, mostly known-age carnivores. Collectively, this work comprises some of Africa’s longest and most comprehensive ecological studies to guide science-based conservation into the challenges, uncertainties, and opportunities of the future.
HIGH-QUALITY EVIDENCE FOR SCIENCE-BASED CONSERVATION.
At ZCP, we believe that solid evidence is the cornerstone of effective conservation. That’s why we prioritize publishing anonymous peer-reviewed scientific papers—the gold standard for scientific evidence. Our findings and recommendations are shared widely with partners and stakeholders through reports, meetings, and media. However, it’s our scientific papers that provide the essential foundation for policies and management actions.
In 2023 alone, we published 8 studies in top quality peer-reviewed conservation journals, while another 4 were still under review. Since 2012, ZCP-DNPW (Department of National Parks and Wildlife) and other partners have published 60 peer-reviewed studies, making Zambia a leader in science-based conservation in the region.
The
Anthropocene
We live in what scientists term the Anthropocene era, or the Age of Humans, where for the first time we are the primary agent of ecological change on the planet.
An era of
rapid changes
Understanding the rates and consequences of these rapid changes and challenges – and being able to effectively address them – is of critical importance for conservation.
Essential Long-Term Studies
Long-term studies that encompass the complexities of human and ecological drivers in ecosystems are therefore of critical importance in providing science-based conservation in a rapidly changing world.
AFRICAN LIONS
In 2024 we continued our long-term intensive lion work across Zambia’s strongholds in the Luangwa Valley and Greater Kafue Ecosystems.
In addition we continued our work with a recovering population in the Greater Liuwa Ecosystem, and on lion restoration efforts in the Greater Nsumbu Ecosystem. In 2024, we intensively monitored 483 lions from 73 prides and coalitions.
2024 Highlights
Published a study on the effect of increased resource protection on lion populations in the open, prey-depleted Greater Kafue Ecosystem. With long-term data from 358 lions we found significant increases in cub production and survival in areas where protection was improved due to recent conservation investment in the Kafue.
After several years of collaborative planning led by the DNPW and Nsumbu-Tanganyika Conservation Project, three lions were translocated from North Luangwa National Park to Nsumbu National Park in October 2024, making the first resident lions in the area for nearly a decade. ZCP assisted in the planning, training, and reintroduction, as well as in the development of best practice guidelines to maximise the conservation value of lion translocations.
Contributed data to the IUCN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species which recommended the Luangwa Valley as one of 8 focal study sites to inform lion status rangewide. Also reviewed the IUCN Green Status of Species Assessment for lion, which complements the Red List by assessing recovery success.
AFRICAN WILD DOGS
In 2024 we continued our wild dog conservation work across three ecosystems in Zambia, one of 6 remaining countries considered to have viable populations of this endangered species.
We intensively monitored 455 individual dogs in 39 packs and dispersing groups in 2024 across the Greater Luangwa, Kafue and Liuwa Ecosystems as part of our long-term work.
2024 Highlights
We performed over 4,300 snare checks and rescued 5 wild dogs from snares.
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Contributions to policy and management included: contributing to a workshop on Developing Guidelines for Mitigating Disease in African Wild Dogs; presenting our work on snaring, snaring mitigation work, and prey depletion impacts to the IUCN African Wild Dog Working Group, and providing estimates of Zambian dog populations for the IUCN Red List Assessment.
Continued to provide key insights and evaluations on the impacts of prey depletion from bushmeat poaching on wild dogs. While naturally limited by competition with lions and not prey, dogs are increasingly impacted by prey depletion and snaring and this creates strong source-sink dynamics between protected areas and buffer zones, compounds the competitive impacts of lions, and drives the demography of populations in the Luangwa and Kafue. We completed 5 studies on these topics in 2024, publishing 4 with one currently in review.
CHEETAH
As the fastest land mammal on Earth and as the lowest density and widest-ranging species of all African carnivores, cheetahs are also a subordinate competitor, and consequently often occur more outside strictly protected areas, which in turn subjects these cats to ever-increasing human impacts.
In 2024, we continued long-term work on Zambia’s two largest cheetah populations in the Greater Kafue and Greater Liuwa Ecosystems. Though monitoring such a cryptic and wide-ranging species can be incredibly challenging, the ZCP field teams intensively monitored 44 cheetahs in 18 different groups across the two ecosystems in 2024.
2024 Highlights
Began formalising a restoration plan for cheetah in the Luangwa Valley, after an over 20-year absence for the species. Groundwork for this restoration began in 2018 with baseline surveys and partner meetings, and in 2024, DNPW, the Cheetah Conservation Initiative, FZS's North Luangwa Conservation Project, Conservation South Luangwa, and ZCP began developing concrete plans with the support of the Howard G. Buffet Foundation. The work aims to not only support species restoration, but also to secure the landscape between parks through community support and resource protection.
We continue to gather critical data on how bushmeat poaching– and resulting prey depletion – may exacerbate competition between cheetahs and lions, who remain the cheetah’s mostdominant and dangerous competitor.
Assisted the Africa Rangewide Cheetah Conservation Initiative and the Zoological Society of London in hosting a meeting of the Cheetah Conservation Country Coordinators in Kafue. With participants from 14 countries, the meeting covered an array of important topics and training for rangewide cheetah conservation.
SPOTTED HYENA
Spotted hyenas are perhaps the most widespread and successful of the large carnivore guild, yet they are subject to the same array of human threats that big cats and wild dogs face, in addition to being vilified for witchcraft and actively persecuted. Because of this, we continue our work on Africa’s most-maligned, data-deficient, and least-supported large carnivore.
While all other species are IUCN listed as Vulnerable or Endangered, the spotted hyena remains listed as Least Concern, in no small part due to a lack of sufficient information on this species. In 2024, we intensively monitored 280 hyenas from 19 clans.
2024 Highlights
Monitored 43 new hyena cubs in the Greater Liuwa Ecosystem, expanding our understanding of clan breeding success and population dynamics in a challenging year of drought.
Completed a scientific study on long-term hyena demography in the prey-rich but lion-depleted Liuwa Ecosystem, finding high survival and reproduction indicative of potential competitive release from lions. As humans continue to impact fundamental ecological relationships such as competition, altered carnivore dynamics are likely to be widespread, and should be a focus of future studies.
Began evaluations of how hyena space-use, home range size and overlap, and clan demography are affected by a migratory wildebeest preybase in Liuwa.
LEOPARDS
Leopards, the most elusive of Africa’s large carnivores, are notoriously difficult to study. To better understand their populations, in 2024, we continued camera trap surveys in Zambia’s key leopard strongholds: the Luangwa Valley and Greater Kafue Ecosystem. Additionally, we partnered on surveys in the Greater Kabompo, Greater Nsumbu, and Greater Liuwa, where leopard populations are still recovering.
We conduct long-term studies in ecosystems with well-documented populations of leopards, their competitors, and prey. Our focus is on understanding how factors like prey depletion and both legal and illegal hunting affect leopard populations.
2024 Highlights
22,615 camera trap days across three systematic grids in Kafue, Luangwa Valley, and West Lunga, providing data on changes in leopard dynamics.
Following the publication of the leopard genome in 2023, we helped develop and submit for publication the leopard SNP Chip, allowing for high quality genetics from low quality samples such as scat and trafficked skins and parts.
Performed 113 snare checks and rescued 1 leopard from a snare.
HERBIVORES
Large herbivores are not only vital prey for large carnivores but also play a crucial role in shaping vegetation and nutrient cycling. Unfortunately, they face significant threats from human activities. That's why ZCP and DNPW emphasise conservation science focused on herbivores. We conduct surveys across key ecosystems and undertake long-term studies of specific species and populations to enhance their protection.
In 2024, we conducted 13 ground-based herbivore surveys across the Luangwa Valley, Greater Kafue, Greater Liuwa, and Greater Kabompo Ecosystems, using distance sampling methods to estimate species density, distribution, and the human and ecological factors influencing them. We also continued our long-term studies on wildebeest in the Greater Liuwa Ecosystem and giraffe in the Luangwa Valley, while initiating a new study on buffalo in the Greater Kafue Ecosystem.
2024 Highlights
Co-authored a global analysis of large herbivore tactics used to rear offspring, and the relative effectiveness of these tactics in the face of human impacts such as climate change.
As part of a collaborative long-term study with the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, we completed our 3rd annual survey of Luangwa giraffe using photographic monitoring with mark-recapture techniques of 495 giraffes in the Luangwa Valley.
Continued the largest, individual-based, long-term study of wildebeest. The study focuses on the human and ecological factors driving wildebeest recovery in the Greater Liuwa Ecosystem, evaluating demography, predator-prey dynamics, and migration and focused on 55 known-age adult females.
We continued studying the impacts of bushmeat poaching on herbivores across all ecosystems.