Monitoring wildlife populations at scale is fraught with logistical and resource constraints. Despite this, estimating wildlife population state variables and vital rates remains crucial for science, and to assess conservation investment and effort. The veracity and transparency of results population size are rare in the literature. To overcome a near two-decade long data gap we thority across six important protected areas. Surveys were conducted within a spatial capturerecapture framework, the industry gold-standard for monitoring carnivore populations. For while for leopards, and spotted hyenas we deployed camera traps. Our protocols were designed to obtain unambiguous individual identification photographs. This large-scale effort involved data university students, and government rangers). Locally extinct in three areas, we show lion