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The cheetah Acinonyx jubatus has suffered considerable range contractions in recent decades. Despite the importance of up-to-date information on distribution to guide conservation, such information is lacking for large areas within the species' remaining potential range. In Tanzania, the largest tract of potential cheetah habitat without such data is the Selous–Nyerere ecosystem. Although the cheetah is considered possibly extant in this landscape, the last confirmed sighting was in the late 1990s. During 2020–2022, we carried out sign-based (spoor) and camera-trap surveys across Selous Game Reserve and Nyerere National Park. We did not record any evidence of cheetah presence, and opportunistic enquiries with tourism operators and protected area management staff did not provide any evidence of current or recent presence. Our findings suggest that current cheetah presence is unlikely, and that Selous–Nyerere should not be treated as potential contemporary cheetah range. We discuss the possibility that Selous–Nyerere may have never hosted a resident cheetah population, and was either occasionally occupied by dispersers from other populations or represented the edge of populations that spanned areas now treated as corridors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Strawberry or red leopards are a rare colour morph of leopard (Panthera pardus) characterised by spot markings that are red or brown instead of black, thought to be a result of a mutation in the tyrosinase‐related protein (TYRP1) gene. We report the first record of this phenotype on the African continent outside of South Africa, from Selous Game Reserve in southern Tanzania. One female leopard with strawberry colouration was documented out of 373 individual leopards (0.3%) identified through camera trap surveys conducted from 2020 to 2022 over a combined area of more than 4600 km2 in the Nyerere‐Selous landscape. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Elephants face diverse threats from human activities and use temporal and social strategies to reduce human‐induced mortality risk. We used data from camera trap surveys in 2018–2019 (n = 1625 independent detection events from 11,751 sampling days) to investigate elephant responses to anthropogenic risk in the Ruaha‐Rungwa ecosystem, Tanzania. The study was conducted in one low‐risk and three high‐risk sites using 26–40 paired camera trap stations per site. Risk influenced the active periods, use of roads and water sources, social associations and behaviour of elephants. Elephants demonstrated significantly more night‐time and reduced daytime activity in the high‐risk sites relative to the low‐risk site. This higher night‐time activity in the high‐risk sites was observed for both males and females, though it was more pronounced for cow–calf groups than lone males. Foraging events and use of water sources were more frequent at night in the high‐risk sites. Elephants used roads as movement routes in the low‐risk site but avoided roads in the high‐risk sites. Males were significantly more likely to associate with other males and cow–calf groups in the high‐risk sites. Fewer occurrences of relaxed behaviours were observed in the high‐risk sites compared to the low‐risk site. We discuss the potential implications of our findings for elephant survival and reproduction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our surveys indicate that Ruaha-Rungwa is home to important populations of lion, leopard, spotted hyaena, and African wild dog. African wild dog, cheetah, density, leopard, lion, spoor, spotted hyaena, Tanzania Keywords: African wild dog; cheetah; density; leopard; lion; spoor; spotted hyaena; Tanzania EN African wild dog cheetah density leopard lion spoor spotted hyaena Tanzania 221 225 5 02/21/23 20230301 NES 230301 INTRODUCTION The Ruaha-Rungwa conservation landscape is a ~45,000 km SP 2 sp Protected Area (PA) complex in south-central Tanzania. [Extracted from the article]