Identifying the primary causes affecting population densities and distribution of flagship species are necessary in developing sustainable management strategies for large carnivore conservation. We modeled drivers of spatial density of the common leopard (Panthera pardus) using a spatially explicit capture–recapture—Bayesian approach to understand their population dynamics in the Maputaland Conservation Unit, South Africa. We camera‐trapped leopards in four protected areas (PAs) of varying sizes and disturbance levels covering 198 camera stations. Ours is the first study to explore the effects of poaching level, abundance of prey species (small, medium, and large), competitors (lion Panthera leo and spotted hyenas Crocuta crocuta), and habitat on the spatial distribution of common leopard density. Twenty‐six male and 41 female leopards were individually identified and estimated leopard density ranged from 1.6 ± 0.62/100 km2 (smallest PA—Ndumo) to 8.4 ± 1.03/100 km2 (largest PA—western shores). Although dry forest thickets and plantation habitats largely represented the western shores, the plantation areas had extremely low leopard density compared to native forest. We found that leopard density increased in areas when low poaching levels/no poaching was recorded in dry forest thickets and with high abundance of medium‐sized prey, but decreased with increasing abundance of lion. Because local leopard populations are vulnerable to extinction, particularly in smaller PAs, the long‐term sustainability of leopard populations depend on developing appropriate management strategies that consider a combination of multiple factors to maintain their optimal habitats.

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African elephants (Loxodonta africana) play a vital role in most African ecosystems, with their opportunity to alter the entire ecosystem by their sheer numbers. Defining and measuring animal welfare has been much discussed. One potential way of determining an animal's welfare is to record the absence or presence of stress. Little research on elephant welfare has so far been performed in the Serengeti ecosystem. The aim of this study was to record the faecal glucocorticoid metabolite levels of African elephants in areas with high or with minimum human interference. A total of 117 faecal samples were collected from randomly located single elephants as well as family herds in the northern, central and western Serengeti National Park (SNP) as well as in Grumeti Game Reserve and Ikoma Open Area, northern Tanzania in 2010. Elephants had higher levels of faecal glucocorticoid metabolites in the areas outside, compared with areas inside SNP. No single males were observed outside SNP, and in general, higher abundance of elephants was observed inside SNP. This suggests that elephants may prefer to reside in the potential safer areas inside the national park, demonstrating the importance of protected areas to improve the welfare of elephants.