Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique was once one of Africa’s most wildlife-rich protected areas, but the country’s civil war from 1977 to 1992 pushed its animal populations to the brink. A 2019 peer-reviewed study, War-induced collapse and asymmetric recovery of large-mammal populations in Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique , documented the scale of that collapse using 15 aerial wildlife counts conducted before and after the war. The study found that large-mammal populations declined by more than 90% during the conflict. It also showed that recovery after the war was uneven, with some species increasing far faster than others. Recovery accelerated from 2004, when the US-based Carr Foundation began the Gorongosa Restoration Project with the Mozambican government. More than two decades later, an official 2024 aerial count recorded 110,513 large animals, the highest number recorded in the park.
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