Page 10 - KWT-2019-Annual-Report_Web-Version

PREDATORS

National Lion & Predator Survey - “Wapi Simba?”

For endangered species, such as the African lion, assessing numbers and
distribution is fundamental to their conservation, from designing conservation
strategies, to gathering support, to measuring conservation success.

As such, the Kenya Wildlife Service has been working together with the Kenya
Wildlife Trust and other partners to assess the country’s current population of
lions and other carnivores. Large carnivores such as lions are notoriously difficult

to count but Kenya is the first African

country to undertake such an ambitious
survey using the best methods available.
The aims of the country-wide survey are
twofold:
1) Estimate the number of lions
that reside in what are believed to
be breeding areas. This is based on
individually identifying each lion (over the
age of one year) that has been sighted.

The method used to estimate lion numbers
was developed in the Maasai Mara in
2014 by KWT’s Scientific associates Drs.
Nic Elliot and Femke Broekhuis and Arjun
Gopalaswamy from the Indian Statistical
Institute and has been adopted by the
“If we cannot measure them, we Kenya Wildlife Service as the standardised
cannot manage them, for how can we
conserve what we do not know?” method for the current and future surveys.

~ Dr. John Waithaka,
Kenya Wildlife Service Board Chairman.

10 KENYA WILDLIFE TRUST ANNUAL REPORT 2019 KENYA WILDLIFE TRUST ANNUAL REPORT 2019