Modern Weights and Measurements of Leopards

[chui_]

(09-04-2019, 01:33 AM)Pckts Wrote:

(09-04-2019, 01:27 AM)chui_ Wrote:

(09-04-2019, 01:14 AM)Pckts Wrote: Considering Money is involved I have my doubts that they are more or less reliable than any others claimed, I know they are fairly consistent with their weights and very few have been over the 90kg threshold which is in line with Leopards weights from any source.

The SCI records have nothing to do with weight. Their purpose is to provide measurements of things like horns, antlers, and skulls of animals. The idea is that these trophy remains can be measured and confirmed by a third party long after the animal is killed so there is no bias in measuring. But clearly that doesn't appear to be working.

The weight or body length of the animal may be reported by the hunter themselves or the professional hunter involved but it is not recorded in SCI's database.

I mentioned this above in the same post but I was editing  during your response so it didn't show.

But your post still has the statement about SCI's weights for leopards. They don't record weights for trophy leopards, they only record their skull measurements.

Quote:I'd imagine their data base is significant and wide reaching, spanning across any reserve that allows Leopard game hunting throughout Africa. I'd think they'd have access to more skulls and measurements than most if not any other modern day source. I'm sure errors occur but I'm not ready to discredit all of them. There are still strict guidelines, rules and regulation to keep the errors minimal. 

SCI probably does have the largest database of measurements on leopard skulls but the fact they aren’t all reliable makes it pretty useless. You have to look at each record independently and try to corroborate it with other info. Sort of defeats the purpose of the record book. 

I don't think the SCI records are wide spanning or representative of all of Africa. Keep in mind SCI has only been around since the mid 1970s and the vast majority of trophy hunting of leopards in the last 3 decades or so has been done in southern Africa and Tanzania – and as a result this is where you would expect most of the SCI records to come from. Leopards are still hunted in some other countries like Ethiopia and the Central African Republic but far fewer. This is mostly because the vast majority of trophy hunters now are American and you can only import a leopard trophy into the US from the following countries: Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique, and Tanzania. The few leopards which are hunted in places like Ethiopia and CAR are mostly taken by European hunters who tend to be less interested in recording their trophies in record books.

"Leopard is a CITES I animal and in the case of US hunters, USF&W will not issue an import permit for any leopard hunted in northern or central African countries where they have declared them to be 'Endangered'. This includes leopards legally hunted in Central African Republic (CAR), Uganda and Ethiopia. The leopard populations of southern Africa - in Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe are considered 'Threatened' by USF&W but CITES import permits should be issued for a leopard trophy." 
https://www.shakariconnection.com/leopard-hunting.html

Kenya was considered the ultimate destination for leopard hunting in the 1960s and early 70s because of a well set up infrastructure and also a population of some huge mountain forest leopards which dominated the Rowland Ward records. But it closed all trophy hunting in 1977. Modern trophy hunting (post 1950s) was never really established in most West or Central African countries due to a lack of adequate infrastructure and stability – in fact countries like the DR Congo actually banned trophy hunting long ago. You’d think this would help the wildlife populations but in most cases the lack of trophy hunting in these unstable countries results in more uncontrolled illegal poaching taking over. One exception might be Cameroon where there’s seems to be a bit of trophy hunting going on but mostly for animals like the bongo – I haven’t seen anything about leopard hunting there – and again American hunters wouldn’t be able to import from there anyway.

Quote:Here you can see a few hunted with their weights, some on the SCI list some not, but some huge Leopards either way.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/game.animals/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1411752695512686&ref=page_internal
*Scroll through the comment section on the Leopard photos.*

The consensus there seems to be that any Leopard near 90kg should be considered a maximum weight

It's probably best not to rely on that facebook page. But I would agree any leopard weighing around 90kg would be very exceptional in areas where most leopard hunting is still done today. Reply