They are among the most incredible species I've ever worked with.

Yeah, my name is Paolo Boulais.

I'm a National Geographic Explorer and associate director of line conservation for Goran Goes a national park in Mozambique.

When we began, nothing was known about how Maney lions we had, but was all about collecting data to really put this population on the map.

This country endured 16 years of civil war, and that war was centered in Gore in Gaza.

During that time, there was a lot of over hunting, so we lost about 95% of our large mammals in a very short time.

After the war, recovery began slowly, and by 2000 and six, the Greg Carr Foundation and the government of Mozambique forged a long term plan to restore this national park to the gym that it used to be.

Before, over the past decade, we've seen a remarkable recovery of wildlife populations.

With the exception of lions.

They didn't make a strong comeback, and our research was specifically to ask why.

To be effective in conservation, you have to collect data which will guide you in the right direction.

When we first got started, we knew we had to collect data on how maney lines we had.

How many female, how maney males on what they were eating, where they were ranging.

So we collect data using a variety of techniques.

One is we collect spatial data from the GPS satellite collars.

So these colors, besides pinging with satellites, also have a radio signal that's picking off.

Every lion with the color has a unique number, so we can tune in on the dial on the radio and actually here where they are.

Secondly, we use camera traps to collect data on lions and other species across the park.

We collected so much data that we launched wild cam gore in Gaza, which allows anybody with the WiFi connection to log on and help us identify species.

Okay, in conservation these days, you need to be able to react fast.

We don't have time on our side.

Mhm.

And thirdly, we are actually on the ground without teams collecting data in the field.

Throughout data collection, we learned that snares with the biggest threat to lions.

The snare is a piece of wire or a steel trap that are set by hunters in the park to catch Buffalo Warthog.

But, incidentally, lions are in these very same places, and they become entrapped.

And so we began to intervene.

Patrols go out and sweep areas clean of devices that lions and other wildlife are getting trapped in.

They can come back with 20.

Sometimes they come back with 200.

But they're actually collecting data on where these snares and traps of set because there are patterns closer to water, forced edges closer to the boundary.

So where before, sneers with such a threat?

Today, thanks to the lion patrols and data that we've collected, we've been able to reverse that trend we're looking for.

A couple are very large line I since one is very, very pregnant, and the other has come see you can my baby.

Over the past year, we've seen such high cut production.

Wherever we look, all the lionesses we've been studying have cups.

At this point, we feel like we're on the path to recovery.

Yeah, the time is now.

If we don't act today in 20 years, we could lose lions on this continent.

That's why we care.

And we believe we can do something to better the situation.

Yeah.

Data collection will always be important in conservation.

New threats will emerge.

They won't be the same as threats we encountered five or 10 years ago.

They may.

But in the meantime, as we bring data in, we can act on that data.

And that's the most important thing for us now.

Yeah.