Globally three quarters of large terrestrial mammalian predators are in decline and many populations are data deficient, including those of African leopards across much of their range. Here we assess the drivers of decline African leopard populations in 16 camera trap surveys covering a total area of 15 120 km2, across a gradient of anthropogenic impact, management and geography, in protected areas across the Zimbabwean component of the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area. Population density was calculated using spatially explicit mark-recapture estimators and Generalised Additive Models (GAM) were used to assess factors affecting population density. Density estimates ranged from 0.7 to 12.2 (mean 2.9 ± 2.7) leopards/100km2. Leopard density was higher in wooded sites and rugged terrain but negatively affected by human factors including human appropriation of net primary productivity (HANPP), trophy hunting risk and bush-meat poaching. High lion densities (>6.0 lions/ 100km2) negatively affected leopard density. Annual rainfall over a gradient of ~ 300mm across survey sites was not influential in predicting population density. Previous assessments of the drivers of declining leopard population density (CITES 1988), asserting that leopard densities can be predicted by annual rainfall and are unaffected by
human disturbance in unmodified habitat are not supported by our findings. We recommend that the 1988 assessment, used to manage CITES leopard trophy hunting export quotas since the late 1980s, should be reviewed.

The increasing frequency and severity of human-caused fires likely have deleterious effects on species distribution and persistence. In 2020, megafires in the Brazilian Pantanal burned 43% of the biome’s unburned area and resulted in mass mortality of wildlife. We investigated changes in habitat use or occupancy for an assemblage of eight mammal species in Serra do Amolar, Brazil, following the 2020 fires using a pre- and post-fire camera trap dataset. Additionally, we estimated the density for two naturally marked species, jaguars Panthera onca and ocelots Leopardus pardalis. Of the eight species, six (ocelots, collared peccaries Dicotyles tajacu, giant armadillos Priodontes maximus, Azara’s agouti Dasyprocta azarae, red brocket deer Mazama americana, and tapirs Tapirus terrestris) had declining occupancy following fires, and one had stable habitat use (pumas Puma concolor). Giant armadillo experienced the most precipitous decline in occupancy from 0.431 ± 0.171 to 0.077 ± 0.044 after the fires. Jaguars were the only species with increasing habitat use, from 0.393 ± 0.127 to 0.753 ± 0.085. Jaguar density remained stable across years (2.8 ± 1.3, 3.7 ± 1.3, 2.6 ± 0.85/100 km²), while ocelot density increased from 13.9 ± 3.2 to 16.1 ± 5.2/100 km². However, the low number of both jaguars and ocelots recaptured after the fire period suggests that immigration may have sustained the population. Our results indicate that the megafires will have significant consequences for species occupancy and fitness in fire-affected areas. The scale of megafires may inhibit successful recolonization, thus wider studies are needed to investigate population trends.