Compensation schemes can contribute to equitable sharing of benefits from wildlife. We describe a scheme that uses tourist fees for partial and conditional compensation of damage to livestock caused by wildlife on Kuku Group Ranch, Kenya. The explicit aim of the scheme is to decrease the killing of lions Panthera leo by Maasai on community land in the Amboseli-Tsavo ecosystem. During - the scheme spent a mean of USD , per year, and although livestock losses remained constant the killing of lions decreased significantly. The percentage of claims where part of the compensation was withheld as a penalty for negligent husbandry practices decreased significantly over time but remained high; poor herding in particular remains a problem. We weigh our results against arguments found in a literature survey; our findings support the negative arguments of moral hazard (i.e. the risk that compensation reduces the incentive to prevent damage) and post-project collapse. Despite these weaknesses the compensation scheme was effective, affordable and sustainable. We conclude that compensation is a useful conservation tool in situations where there is an imminent threat to biodiversity, and sustainable funding sources are available.

Sympatric carnivores compete for similar resources which may lead to dominant species influencing the ecology of subordinate ones. However, carnivores often make use of coevolutionary strategies which enable them to minimise competition with dominant competitors and thus facilitate coexistence. We used camera trapping and scat analysis to investigate the potential competition between leopards (Panthera pardus) and caracals (Caracal caracal) along spatial, temporal and dietary axes to determine the mechanisms of their coexistence in the Cederberg, South Africa. Our results showed that both carnivores co-occurred at 39.73% of camera trapping sites, but spatial overlap based on Pianka's index was relatively low. We found a high overlap in daily activity patterns between these carnivore species both during winter and summer. Leopards and caracals exhibited fine-scale behavioural avoidance of one another, with time-to-encounters between interspecific competitors being significantly larger compared to intraspecific competitors. The two carnivores had a relatively high diet overlap, although this was largely due to one prey species, namely rock hyrax (Procavia capensis), which appears to be an important shared prey item. However, we did find evidence of dietary niche segregation, as leopards consumed larger prey compared to caracals. Our study suggests that carnivore coexistence in the Cederberg is facilitated by a combination of populationlevel partitioning in space-use and dietary habits, as well as fine-scale behavioural avoidance at the individual level to reduce interference competition. This study provides insights into the competition and coexistence mechanisms between sympatric carnivores and broadens our understanding of these ecological processes in carnivore guild systems.

The feeding ecology of lions (Panthera leo, Linnaeus 1758) was investigated in and around Waza National Park, northern Cameroon. Diet was determined using global positioning system (GPS) data of lion kill sites (clusters of GPS location points) collected using radio collars. Lions consumed 14 different prey species, with five species that were either medium (50–200 kg) or large (>200 kg) in size forming the bulk of kills. The western kob (Kobus kob kob) was the most common (23.5%) wild prey of lions, but worryingly livestock (predominantly cattle) constituted as much as 21.6% of the diet. This creates a conservation problem resulting in lions being killed in retaliation. However, this conflict is strongly exacerbated by herders driving their cattle into the park for forage and water. Wild prey was also consumed outside the park (6.7%), suggesting excursions beyond the park boundary. Lions showed a preference for wild prey over livestock when relative abundances were considered. Management efforts to reduce livestock intrusion into the park and to reverse the declining trends of wild prey populations would significantly reduce predation of livestock and prevent persecution of lions in this park, but conflict mitigation measures outside the park are also urgently needed.

Globally, leopards are the most widespread large felid. However, mounting anthropogenic threats are rapidly reducing viable leopard populations and their range. Despite the clear pressures facing this species, there is a dearth of robust and reliable population and density estimates for leopards across their range, which is particularly important in landscapes that consist of protected and non-protected areas. We conducted a camera trapping survey between 2017 and 2018 in the Western Cape, South Africa to estimate the occupancy, density, and population size of a leopard population. Leopards were recorded at 95% of camera trapping sites, which resulted in a high occupancy that showed no significant variation between seasons, habitat types, or along an altitudinal gradient. Our results indicated a low leopard density in the study area, with an estimated 1.53 leopards/100 km2 in summer and 1.62 leopards/100 km2 in winter. Mean leopard population size was therefore estimated at 107 and 113 individuals in the winter and summer respectively. Leopard activity centres for female ranges were centred in the core study area and could be predicted with good certainty, while males appeared to move out of the study area during winter which resulted in a higher uncertainty in locations of activity centres. Interestingly, livestock depredation events in the surrounding farmlands were significantly higher in winter, which coincides with male leopards moving outside the core protected area into the surrounding farmlands. To reduce livestock losses and retaliatory leopard killings, we suggest that human-carnivore conflict mitigation measures be intensely monitored during the winter months in the study area. We also suggest that future leopard conservation efforts should focus on privately-owned land as these non-protected areas contain the majority of the remaining suitable leopard habitat and may provide important dispersal corridors and buffer zones on which the long-term sustainability of leopard populations depends.

Context African lion (Panthera leo) populations are declining throughout Africa, but the problem is particularly acute in southern Kenya, where human–lion conflict is common. Aims Using the Kuku Group Ranch (KGR) in southern Kenya as a case study, we investigated lion diet and the potential drivers of temporal variation in cattle depredation. Methods Using GPS clusters, we investigated the main prey species consumed by lions to determine lion diet. Prey preference of lions in relation to prey availability was then assessed using a Jacobs index to determine whether cattle or wild prey were preferred. We used reported depredation events recorded by verification officers over 36 months (2016–2018) to investigate whether temporal variation in cattle depredation by lions was linked to variation in lag rainfall, normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI) or availability of the most important large non-domestic prey items. Key results Six prey species (cattle, Bos taurus; Burchell’s zebra, Equus quagga; Coke’s hartebeest, Alcelaphus cokeii; Maasai giraffe, Giraffa tippelskirchi; blue wildebeest, Connochaetes taurinus; and eland, Tragelaphus oryx) made up 92% of the biomass consumed by lions on KGR. Cattle are the most consumed prey item and contribute the second most to consumed biomass after giraffe. However, once prey availability is considered, lions preferred wild prey. Verification officers identified 330 cattle depredation events over 3 years, and we show that the most important predictor of monthly cattle depredation by lions was cumulative rainfall in the preceding 3 months. Conclusions Our results on cattle depredation by lions showed that rainfall and its influence on the environment are important drivers of cattle depredation. Understanding the mechanistic link between lion depredation and rainfall enables us to predict when depredation events may increase and allows hypotheses on the reason why this spike in depredation takes place to be explored. Implications Given that climate-change models indicate that East Africa will experience prolonged and increased seasonal rainfall, we predict that periods when cattle are vulnerable to lion depredation may increase. Therefore, it is imperative to ensure that cattle husbandry is improved during these wetter periods to minimise the risk of conflict and retaliatory killing of lions.