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

The conflict assessment component of this study will make use of livestock depredation events recorded by the WCS. We will collate existing livestock attack data collected by the WCS over the past 18 months. This data has spatial and temporal characteristics, as well as environmental variables accompanying it (namely which species of livestock was killed, its GPS location and date, signs of the suspected culprit and basic environmental variables such as vegetation type). We will supplement this retrospective data with new data collected in 2017 – mid 2018 from the village lands adjoining the park and from those within. We will note the date, GPS position and sign of the responsible carnivore. We will also examine the immediate landscape-level variables surrounding the attack -- namely altitude, vegetation type and a measurement of habitat thickness (cover).