On tracks: A spoor-based occupancy survey of lion Panthera leo distribution in Kafue National Park, Zambia

The African lion has lost more than 75% of its historic range and numbers of wild lions continue to decline. Protected areas are critical to the species' future, yet its conservation status in many of these presumed sanctuaries remains unknown. Zambia is one of nine countries estimated to hold over 1000 wild lions, and Kafue, its largest National Park, is a key stronghold for the species. Understanding lion distribution and threats facing the species in the park are of particular relevance given the recent ban on lion hunting in Zambia and the uncertainty over this industry's future in the country. We used a single-season occupancy model based on detection of lion tracks to estimate proportion of area used and derive spatially explicit probability of lion use for northern Kafue, an area for which no previous empirical lion data exist. Our top-ranking model predicted that lions use 72.1% of the study area, 23.3% greater than the naïve estimate. Contrary to our expectations, and possibly due to apparent ubiquity of illegal bushmeat hunting in the park, neither prey biomass nor anthropogenic edge effects emerged as important drivers of lion distribution, with habitat class instead the best predictor. Our findings provide the management authority with survey methodology as well as focal areas for further lion research in the Kafue system. More broadly, we demonstrate the utility of track-based occupancy models in establishing the distribution of large carnivores within previously unsurveyed African protected areas.