Imbalanced recovery and depleted baselines of a protected mammal community in post-conflict Angola

Armed conflicts have enduring social and ecological impacts, leaving profound imprints on wildlife populations. Angola, having withstood decades of civil unrest (1961–2002), is a post-conflict region characterized by extensive wildlife exploitation, exacerbated by firearm availability and limited conservation management. We explored the defaunation and post-war recovery of Angolan protected areas by examining temporal occupancy dynamics of Bicuar National Park's mammal community, over a decade after armed conflicts ended and formal protection was reinstated. We assessed whether, in absence of active restoration strategies, extant mammal populations are continuing to decline, have stabilized, or exhibit signs of ongoing recovery. Continuous camera-trap monitoring in BNP's core area from 2017 to 2023, across twelve yearly-seasonal survey periods, revealed low mean occupancies ($\overline{\psi }$=0.30 ± 0.17), suggesting the persisting depletion of many of the park's mammal populations. We found no evidence of continued population declines, and 17 out of 27 focal species exhibited signs of recovery (positive occupancy change rates). Yet, asymmetric trajectories raise concerns about the limited recovery potential of multiple mammal species, including all large carnivore and threatened species. Site occupancy dynamics were associated with vegetation biomass and waterhole distribution, highlighting the potential of managing vegetation encroachment and increasing surface water to support mammal populations post-conflict. The natural recovery of mammal populations depauperated by extended periods of armed conflict may be an attainable expectation. However, as the local mammal community reassembles in non-uniform and trait-dependent trajectories, active measures might be necessary to sustain the recovery of populations seemingly persisting at depleted states and restore ecological functionality.