Increasing trends in elephant population numbers in South Africa contrast those in most other range states. Most of South Africa's elephants occur in Kruger National Park (Kruger). Elephant population estimates and trends in these are key aspects of evaluating their conservation status. Authorities in Kruger traditionally made use of elephants observed during total aerial surveys. This approach, however, has no measures of precision of the population estimates. Total aerial surveys also assume that sample errors and various biases have negligible impact on population estimates. We aimed to demonstrate and explore a sample-based methodology to obtain the most reliable population estimates and trends. Total and sample aerial surveys of elephants were simultaneously used to develop sample-based estimates with confidence intervals for the Kruger elephant time series. During 2020, sample errors resulted in an approximately 15% underestimate of the number of elephants in Kruger. The aerial survey that accounted for sample errors estimated 31 324 elephants (95% CI: 28 457-34 191) present in Kruger. Comparison with the 2013 sample-based estimate predicts annual exponential growth of 5.3% (95% CI: 3.7-7.0%). Correct estimates with precision are important to inform assessments of the conservation status of elephants and how this may change.

Species typically occupy fewer sites, and average population densities decline from the centre to the edge of a species’ range when the range contracts. The poaching of rhinoceroses (rhinos) for their horn has degraded the black and white rhino populations in Kruger National Park (Kruger). Rhino populations have declined, and their distributions have contracted since 2010. We surveyed the black and white rhino populations in the Kruger during 2021 and 2022. We also identified core areas where rhino densities are greater and defined these as priority conservation zones. We then tested the prediction that population growth within priority conservation zones will exceed population growth beyond these zones for both black and white rhino. The results highlighted the continued decline of the white rhino population, while the black rhino population has stabilised since 2020. Growth rates were negative for white rhinos within priority conservation zones, but higher than those beyond these zones. For black rhinos, growth in priority conservation zones was positive and higher than those beyond zones. Priority conservation zones offer an opportunity to combat rhino poaching in a more tactical manner, concentrating resources on key areas for rhino survival. Conservation implications: We highlight complementary approaches to the existing anti-poaching tactics that focus on exploiting easier access control, situational awareness, integrity and individual-based rhino monitoring when targeting priority conservation zones within Kruger.

Herbivores are a main driver of ecosystem patterns and processes in semi-arid savannas, with their effects clearly observed when they are excluded from landscapes. Starting in the 1960s, various herbivore exclosures have been erected in the Kruger National Park (KNP), for research and management purposes. These exclosures vary from very small (1 m2) to relatively large (almost 900 ha), from short-term (single growing season) to long-term (e.g. some of the exclosures were erected more than 60 years ago), and are located on different geologies and across a rainfall gradient. We provide a summary of the history and specifications of various exclosures. This is followed by a systematic overview of mostly peer-reviewed literature resulting from using KNP exclosures as research sites. These 75 articles cover research on soils, vegetation dynamics, herbivore exclusion on other faunal groups and disease. We provide general patterns and mechanisms in a synthesis section, and end with recommendations to increase research outputs and productivity for future exclosure experiments.Conservation Implications: Herbivore exclosures in the KNP have become global research platforms, that have helped in the training of ecologists, veterinarians and field biologists, and have provided valuable insights into savanna dynamics that would otherwise have been hard to gain. In an age of dwindling conservation funding, we make the case for the value added by exclosures and make recommendations for their continued use as learning tools in complex African savannas.

Conservation managers frequently set goals and monitor progress toward them. This often becomes a routine annual exercise, and periodic reflection over longer periods is done less often, if at all. We report on the annual monitoring of fire patterns in the Kruger National Park between 2012 and 2020, and examine how these compared with desired thresholds of spatial extent and intensity. These thresholds were based on decades of research and were aimed at achieving specific ecological outcomes. The patterns were outside of thresholds in two out of five fire management zones. In one (Zone 1), the goal was to encourage frequent burning, and this was marginally not achieved due to a severe drought during the period assessed. In Zone 3, a reduction in extent and intensity was desired, but thresholds for both were substantially exceeded. An exceedance in any given year might not trigger a management response, but if this occurs over multiple years it should trigger an examination of whether these exceedances affected the desired ecological outcomes. On reflection, we recommend that current management in four zones need not change, but that Zone 3 would require appropriate interventions. The available options can simultaneously produce positive and negative conservation outcomes, so trade‐offs become necessary. By reflecting on research findings and management challenges, the advantages and disadvantages of available options have become clear, providing a basis for prioritization and compromise.

Global COVID-19 responses by governments restricted international travel, imposed national lockdowns, reduced economies, and influenced people's livelihoods. Travel restrictions and national lockdowns may constrain international illegal supply chains of high value wildlife products such as rhinoceros (rhino) horn. We evaluated whether the COVID-19 lockdown responses by South Africa induced a poaching pause on rhinos in Kruger National Park. We collated information on poaching incidences from 2017 and made predictions for expected incidences during 2020 using trends noted between 2017 and 2019. Rangers observed substantially fewer incidences of poaching during South Africa's hard lockdown. As restrictions eased, poaching incidences increased. Despite the COVID-19 poaching pause, both black and white rhinos continued to decline in Kruger National Park as recruitment could not offset poaching and natural deaths.

The persistence of black (Diceros bicornis minor) and white (Ceratotherium simum simum) rhinoceroses in the Kruger National Park (Kruger) is a key requirement for global rhinoceros conservation targets. Yet, poaching for rhinoceros horn poses a threat. In response, authorities are implementing an integrated response to curb the effect of poaching on rhinoceroses in Kruger. Nevertheless, researchers predicted both species would decline by 2016. The predictions were realized for southern white rhinoceroses, but it is uncertain whether the decline is real for south-central black rhinoceroses. Several evaluations are needed to elucidate uncertainties associated with detecting trends, the most important being to evaluate the effect of carcass detection rates on estimates of poaching rates. Nonetheless, poaching effects on rhinoceroses are disrupting conservation efforts to recover both southern white and south-central black rhinoceroses.

South African National Parks (SANParks) manage landscapes rather than numbers of elephants (Loxodonta africana) to mitigate the effects that elephants may have on biodiversity, tourism and stakeholder conservation values associated with protected areas. This management philosophy imposes spatial variability of critical resources on elephants. Restoration of such ecological processes through less intensive management predicts a reduction in population growth rates from the eras of intensive management. We collated aerial survey data since 1995 and conducted an aerial total count using a helicopter observation platform during 2015. A minimum of 17 086 elephants were resident in the Kruger National Park (KNP) in 2015, growing at 4.2% per annum over the last generation of elephants (i.e. 12 years), compared to 6.5% annual population growth noted during the intensive management era ending in 1994. This may come from responses of elephants to density and environmental factors manifested through reduced birth rates and increased mortality rates. Authorities should continue to evaluate the demographic responses of elephants to landscape scale interventions directed at restoring the limitation of spatial variance in resource distribution on elephant spatiotemporal dynamics and the consequences that may have for other conservation values. Conservation implications: Conservation managers should continue with surveying elephants in a way that allows the extraction of key variables. Such variables should focus on measures that reflect on how theory predicts elephants should respond to management interventions.

Making an appropriate conservation decision often requires understanding the functional connectivity of the landscape for focal species. Graph theory and continuous surface methods have become powerful tools to quantify landscape connectivity for animal movement. However, a key limitation of these methods is the use of thresholding to define either habitat patches or links between patches.We explore how to incorporate African elephants' (Loxodonta africana) movement data into an "AvailabilitySuitability-Connectivity (ASC)" framework which integrates habitat suitability modeling and graph-based network analysis, and how to implement connectivity results to inform conservation management that addresses locally intensive habitat utilization by elephants. In our ASC analysis, node availability was identified by satellite imagery classification and node suitability was estimated by MaxEnt model. Links were determined by effective movement between nodes in three days. Differences of Integrative Index of Connectivity (dIIC) and its fractions were calculated to prioritize patch importance, which were then used for mapping an example landscape management zones to reduce elephant local ecological impact. In total, 544 nodes and 1345 links were identified in the landscape graph. Although suitable nodes were spread across the landscape, elephants intensively used habitat at the central area. Our zone map demonstrates areas for landscape management that can facilitate elephant range expansion. The integrative framework quantified the ASC interactions between animal movement and landscape features. The results highlight the potential for coupling geographic and ecological methods to effectively identify and focus conservation efforts.