Why is it important to count big cats?

 

Two leopards walk in a wetland marsh in Sri-Lanka's Yala National Park (Photo credit: Steve Winter)

One of the most common questions we receive is "what's the point of counting big cats?". In fact many we can probably all agree that its more important to engage in conservation action rather than monitoring. However, our philosophy is that monitoring is an important precursor or at the very least a companion to conservation actions, and this could not be more poignant when it comes to trying to understand the effect of a particular management intervention (like setting up a boma to protect cattle against predation, compensating farmers or increasing enforcement) on big cats.

Our field research and camera trapping approach (largely based upon monitoring of tiger in India and African lions in the Maasai Mara; see Gopalaswamy et al. 2012 and Elliot and Gopalaswamy 2016) will set the platform for robust estimation of African lions, leopards and spotted hyenas not only in 2017 and 2018 but in future years. With a standardised method that yields precise numbers local authorities will be able to robustly assess whether carnivores in Queen Elizabeth are stable, increasing or in decline. Our research is particularly important in light of recent critiques that place little faith in the most common counting techniques presently used widely across Africa (namely spoor transects and call up surveys; Gopalaswamy et al. 2015).