Summary Understanding resource selection and quantifying habitat connectivity are fundamental to conservation planning for both land‐use and species management plans. However, data sets available to management authorities for resource selection and connectivity analyses are often highly limited and fragmentary. As a result, measuring connectivity is challenging, and often poorly integrated within conservation planning and wildlife management. To exacerbate the challenge, scale‐dependent resource use makes inference across scales problematic, resource use is often modelled in areas where the species is not present, and connectivity is typically measured using a source‐to‐sink approach, erroneously assuming animals possess predefined destinations. Here, we used a large carnivore, the leopard Panthera pardus, to characterise resource use and landscape connectivity across a vast, biodiverse region of southern Africa. Using a range of data sets to counter data deficiencies inherent in carnivore management, we overcame methodological limitations by employing occupancy modelling and resource selection functions across three orders of selection, and estimated landscape‐scale habitat connectivity – independent of a priori source and sink locations – using circuit theory. We evaluated whether occupancy modelling on its own was capable of accurately informing habitat connectivity, and identified conservation priorities necessary for applied management. We detected markedly different scale‐dependent relationships across all selection orders. Our multi‐data, multi‐scale approach accurately predicted resource use across multiple scales and demonstrates how management authorities can more suitably utilise fragmentary data sets. We further developed an unbiased landscape‐scale depiction of habitat connectivity, and identified key linkages in need of targeted management. We did not find support for the use of occupancy modelling as a proxy for landscape‐scale habitat connectivity and further caution its use within a management context. Synthesis and applications. Maintaining habitat connectivity remains a fundamental component of wildlife management and conservation, yet data to inform these biological and ecological processes are often scarce. We present a robust approach that incorporates multi‐scale fragmentary data sets (e.g. mortality data, permit data, sightings data), routinely collected by management authorities, to inform wildlife management and land‐use planning. We recommend that management authorities employ a multi‐data, multi‐scale connectivity approach – as we present here – to identify management units at risk of low connectivity.

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The devolution of user rights of wildlife in southern Africa has led to a widespread land-use shift from livestock farming to game ranching. The economic advantages of game ranching over livestock farming are significant, but so too are the risks associated with breeding financially valuable game where free-ranging wildlife pose a credible threat. Here, we assessed whether the conservation potential of game ranching, and a decentralized approach to conservation more generally, may be undermined by an increase in human-wildlife conflict. We demonstrate that game rancher tolerance towards free-ranging wildlife has significantly decreased as the game ranching industry has evolved. Our findings reveal a conflict of interest between wealth and wildlife conservation resulting from local decision making in the absence of adequate centralized governance and evidence-based best practice. As a fundamental pillar of devolution-based natural resource management, game ranching proves an important mechanism for economic growth, albeit at a significant cost to conservation.

Data on the population dynamics and threats to large carnivores are vital to conservation efforts, but these are hampered by a paucity of studies. For some species, such as the leopard (Panthera pardus), there is such uncertainty in population trends that leopard trophy hunting has been banned in South Africa since 2016 while further data on leopard abundance are collected. We present one of the first assessments of leopard population dynamics, and identify the key threats to a population of leopards outside of protected areas in South Africa. We conducted a long-term trap survey between 2012 and 2016 in the Soutpansberg Mountains, and drew on a previous estimate of leopard population density for the region from 2008. In 24 sampling periods, we estimated the population density and assessed population structure. We fitted eight leopards with GPS collars to assess threats to the population. Leopard population density declined by 66%, from 10.73 to 3.65 leopards per 100 km2 in 2008 and 2016, respectively. Collared leopards had a high mortality rate, which appeared to be due to illegal human activity. While improving the management of trophy hunting is important, we suggest that mitigating human–wildlife conflict could have a bigger impact on carnivore conservation.

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