Modern Weights and Measurements of Leopards

[Pckts]

Landmark Leopard & Predator Project - South Africa

Leopard No 63 rescued.

We are happy to report that today the Landmark Foundation rescued its 63rd leopard. We are working collaboratively with some of the landowners in the Moutonshoek Protected Environment near Piketberg in the Western Cape and captured, collared and released on site this male leopard. He is in the prime of life and in brilliant condition, weighing 60kg, which is a very large male for the area.

The leopard was collared and released on site as part of a conflict mitigation project, and research into management options for leopards in agricultural production landscapes.

Our published research has demonstrated that only 500 adult leopards remain in the Western Cape, and 400 in the Eastern Cape. They exist in small population pockets with variable connectivity between these areas and have shown (also via peer reviewed research) that the population is genetically bottlenecking. It is critical for their survival that we fight for each leopard and their population connectivity. Leopards do not utilize transformed landscapes.

Historically these leopards would be removed or killed and we have worked with the farmers in the area to ensure that they stay in situ.

The purposes of our efforts are as follows:

• Stop the persecution of leopards in human wildlife conflict: We run a compensation system for participant farmers that introduce non-lethal controls whereby we pay them out market slaughter value for the animals that are killed by the leopards.

• The leopards are GPS collared and we use the positional data to study population dynamics, verify leopard caused livestock losses (and on this basis pay out compensation), and analyze the functionality of the predicted connectivity corridors in remnant habitats. The Piketberg is a particularly interesting area as it seems to have been recolonized after earlier decimation of the leopard populations. It is also an unusual island like habitat with a “sea of land transformation” surrounding it but with connectivity to known source populations in the Cederberg in the northwest. Fascinating data is emerging from our camera surveys and other collared leopards in the area. The population dynamics in this region seems particularly interesting.

• We are evaluating the effectiveness of compensations and mitigation practices through this research.

• We conduct genetic analysis of population structure of all leopards we can obtain a tissue sample from.

• We are also evaluating the effectiveness and determinants of effectiveness of local leopard translocations as a management option for conflict leopards and the proven genetic bottlenecking that the remnant populations are showing.

We thank the Smit family for their collaboration. Thank you also to Cape Nature for your inputs today and help in the field. We are grateful to Piketberg Animal Hospital for the veterinary services. We value your collaboration!

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